Growing up, whenever something was broken or destroyed, my mom would always throw her hands up in the air and claim, "Have kids; have nothing!" Now I know exactly what she means. My two little girls may look like angels, but I know the truth.
They are demons.
These are the hazards of parenting a terrible two-year-old and a terrifying three-year-old. My mom surprised us with a trip to AZ for Christmas and this is the list of grievances my two girls racked up while they were there. I'm telling you it's a lucky thing that I had already purchased and given away their Christmas gifts, because Santa would have needed to reconsider the naughty list this year.
For the 2-year-old:
1. One opened tube of mascara used to paint her face and the furniture.
2. One broken planter.
3. Three broken ornaments (sorry Mom, not sure if you knew about that one)
4. Upholstery covered in chocolate.
5. A decimated package of m&ms with handprints left lining the walls up the stairs.
For the 3-year-old
1. One tube of lipstick used to decorate her lips, her body, the furniture, the carpet, my mom's decorative pillows and the duvet cover. TWICE!! Yes, she did it TWICE!! (By the way, if you've ever tried to get lipstick off of fabric, then you know why this was so disastrous--it took me forever to work it out of the carpet and the duvet cover had to be dry-cleaned. Once again, sorry mom.)
2. One bottle of Windex completely emptied and used to "clean" ("douse" would be the more appropriate word here probably) my mini-dvd player (which is now completely broken), all of the stuffed animals in Kelvin's room, his electronic globe (which does still work thankfully) and her hair.
3. She somehow forgot that the toilet serves a very important flushing purpose and decided the carpet would do just fine. What is she thinking!!!
4. About 20 upwrapped hershey kisses left littering the mud room--culprit caught denying "chocolate thief" charges with chocolate lining her lips.
All of these incidents occurred within a week--I'm terrified to go anywhere with these little demons anymore. To all of you parents of toddlers, how do we deal with this kind of destruction? I'd love to hear how you try to teach better respect for things. And how would you punish these two deviants?
12 comments:
Congratulations on your third little girl! That is the only way to do it. And if Stephen needs "girly" advice, he can give Bert a call.
Well it probably doesn't help that you take their picture everytime they do something wrong. Then they'll think it's ok. But then again, I love seeing their little mischevious faces.
Wow!! That is all that I can say. I have no advise and as for punishment, no clue. Our Ella apparently think that spankings feel good and chooses them over doing what we have asked.
You've seen my list of Hurricane Christina's antics. I have no wisdom for you other than the fact that it will pass. I find most of the naughtiness comes when I'm not being real attentive and trying to actually accomplish something like clean my house or do a project or blog.
They are the most darling little demons though. I can't believe how long and curly both their hair is. It sounds like a busy trip in many senses of the word.
I do not have children (yet) so I obviously do not have advice for you.
However, I can tell you that I very distinctly remember a 'sweet innocent' little girl named Lauren Lewis (aka Lauren Reber) along with her twin younger brothers, Ben and Doug, being just as mischevious while I 'an innocent' teenager tended to them while their loving parents were away!!!!!
Lucky for you I still have my journals from when I was a teenager and wrote about incidents with your family, the Allen's, and the Barnes'. One of these days I will gladly photo copy it for you and send it to you. You will probably get a kick out of it.
Maybe during my spring break when I have more time I will photo copy my journal entries when I used to tend you - especially the three years of babysitting on Christmas Eve!!! Please email me your address so I can remember to do this.
I am so sorry but I do have to tell you that picture with the girls together directly under the 'demon' word is hilarious. the look on Kayla's face is completely priceless!
Wow, I am glad I read this AFTER we had you guys over, I might have been a little more paranoid had I known. Ha ha just kidding. I had no idea your girls were such deviants, especially little Kayla, and I am so relieved to know my kids are not the only ones.
Hahahaha, Lauren, I love it! I think I need to adopt your mom's saying! I am so happy to hear that my children are not alone in their deviance :) Katie is in a league of her own and have almost written many a blog post similar to this one! That girl almost killed my "you better be good or Santa won't come" thing because Anna knew Katie was not particularly good this year! I hear they grow out of it..... mostly. I love the way you wrote this, and the pictures of the little devils, they are adorable!
I make the kids clean up what they did and then we wash windows or do some chore to "earn money" if they damaged or broke somthing or to just make them realize that making a mess takes a LONG time to clean up and everyone contributes to keeping the home nice. (I always clean up with them so it does not get worse. ) Best wishes!
That is hilarious! Of course it's easy to laugh when it's someone else's kid reaking havoc on the world! I wish I had better advice than just "wait (and pray)for it to get better" but I think that's all I've got. Good luck!
Those are very talented lists. They sure do a good job at what they do best! I sure hope you figure out the best parenting tactics because we are really entering that stage very quickly and could use some advice ourselves!
Lauren~
Congrats on girl # 3! Wow! Things could get a little more crazy! You are such a wonderful mom though! I am so glad that we have been friends for soooooooooooooooo many years! Email me soon! Love ya! jkschlink@gmail.com
Kristen
We now make Owen stand in the corner with his head on the wall for time out. When he's done he glares at me and refuses to say sorry. Then he goes another few rounds until he finaly gives up a meager appology. I'm about to write Super Nanny.
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