Day 7: I Won't Let You

[climbing]

[on our way to the nursery]

[brains...]

I found the "I wont let you" pearl through the fantastic resource that is Janet Lansbury and her Magda Gerber/RIE approach to child rearing. Here is a great post about it on her blog. I also follow her Facebook page Elevating Childcare.

Today: I'm only one week in to my challenge and I'm sad to say I slapped Charlie today in his little face. I was sitting on the couch after having just breast fed Mia and Charlie was at me. He started with trying to bite me, I was trying to deflect him with the one hand that wasn't holding Mia, and I calmly stated over and over "I wont let you bite me" Actually "I won't let you..." is what is suggested you say but I find myself saying "I'm not going to let you..." Then he started trying to hit me, I tried as best I could to defend myself one handed as said "I'm not going to let you hit me". So then he started trying to kick me, after telling him I was going to let him kick he circled back to trying to bite me. Then I raised my voice and asked him if he wanted a smack, I knew I was falling off the wagon then. I had an aware moment that my buttons were being pushed and thought lucky I'm on a challenge where I've committed to not smacking else I probably would have escalated right about now. Charlie relentlessly continued trying to bite me and got my finger, I pulled my finger free and slapped his little face in anger and yelled at him "I told you!" Instead of shutting him in the bedroom like I had threatened during all of this I shut myself in my bedroom so I could get away from him and calm down/have a little cry and compose myself so I could get to a place where I could comfort him instead of wanting to scream in his face.

So perhaps my takeaway from all this is that I cannot effectively defend myself from Charlie one handed while I hold Mia, and next time I need to put her down and deal with Charlie two handedly. And that list of my triggers...

:: when Charlie physically hurts me (as proved today)
:: when Charlie keeps head butting me
:: when Charlie wrecks things/is being destructive
:: when Charlie tries to kick/hurt the cats or the chickens, but especially when his foot connects
:: when Charlie hurts Mia
:: when Charlie continues to do something over and over that I've asked him to stop, like licking me
:: and my buttons are so much more easily pushed when I am tired!

I might have to come back and update this list as things come to me.

Even though I lost my cool "I won't let you" does work and I used it later in the day when we were on our way back from the nursery with our two bags of potting mix, some seedlings and Charlie in the garden cart (we were on our way to the nursery in the second photo).

Charlie was not being careful of the seedlings and this was making me angry, and the weight in the cart was making it a very slow trip. I asked Charlie to hold the punnet of seedlings so he wouldn't damage them and they ended up over the side of the cart. He said he dropped them, I don't know if he dropped them on purpose or if it was an accident. I'd had enough. I got him out of the cart and told him it was too heavy/there wasn't enough room. He kept trying to get back in to the cart. I circled the cart stopping him, saying "I won't let you in the cart" we wen't around and around, he cried and screamed, I stayed calm blocking him from getting in/removing him when did get past me. I wondered what kind of spectacle we must have looked like if anyone had looked out their window. I didn't let that stop me though. Eventually I asked him if he wanted to help me pull the cart and just like that it was over.

Mx