Sometimes it has been hard to tell what is unique to fostering and what is just parenting. Minus my non-hormonal introduction to mommy-hood, NOTHING is different as far as I am concerned. Not when it comes to my kids. Sure I have way more people and paper involved my parenting process. But lots of people have kids in occupational therapy, with behavioral challenges or baggage.
Part of my transitions has been especially noticeable when pertaining to my toddler, i.e. the child I JUMPED in the middle of life with...ok so realistically I missed 18 months of her life..so she is hardly in the middle...but it sure felt like I missed a whole bunch. With the baby I only missed 3 days. And even then I have wondered what specifics of his life I missed... But with T I have struggled with what's a behavior from a neglected baby/preemie/possible exposure vs. typical two year old?
I am typical mamma bear... I don't want to be told that my kids are missing milestones or are delayed...but if negative observations are made I want justify these aspects of my kids ! "Behind!? Don't you see how smart she is and how fast she's learning?" On the flip side, in my moments of humiliation regarding either my inability to parent, or an out of control child I wish to justify these un-savories also" yeah so what of she's screaming and slapping me on the middle of Walmart..she was a preemie and she's my foster kid I haven't had her that long...and I don't beat her! AND DON'T YOU JUDGE ME" I mentally scream to the sympathetic passerby...
At Target the other day, I felt super proud of myself for not once mentally screaming these excuses. I owned my toddler's bad behavior. I was there for 30 ish minutes. she screamed and whined for 3-4. It was a long 3-4, (it actually might have been more like 1-2 but time stood still for mamma) but I not once wanted to justify her behavior, in my head or to the world. She knew what she was doing, she knew the consequences. And I knew her enough to know she would get over it. My kid threw a tantrum, not because she was a preemie, or neglected, or in foster care, but because she wanted to hold the plastic cups and mamma wouldn't let her.* So what? they were cool cups!
embarrassed my kids throw tantrums over plastic cups? ha newbie #newparent
This post seemed to make a lot more sense in my head....#newblogger
ps....
*The issue was not her holding the plastic cups, but she is not allowed to hold anything mom puts in the cart only to prevent the meltdown when we have to hand everything over to the cashier, for some reason the cups were the biggest enticement today. This system has worked well for me in the past *sigh*.
At Target the other day, I felt super proud of myself for not once mentally screaming these excuses. I owned my toddler's bad behavior. I was there for 30 ish minutes. she screamed and whined for 3-4. It was a long 3-4, (it actually might have been more like 1-2 but time stood still for mamma) but I not once wanted to justify her behavior, in my head or to the world. She knew what she was doing, she knew the consequences. And I knew her enough to know she would get over it. My kid threw a tantrum, not because she was a preemie, or neglected, or in foster care, but because she wanted to hold the plastic cups and mamma wouldn't let her.* So what? they were cool cups!
embarrassed my kids throw tantrums over plastic cups? ha newbie #newparent
This post seemed to make a lot more sense in my head....#newblogger
ps....
*The issue was not her holding the plastic cups, but she is not allowed to hold anything mom puts in the cart only to prevent the meltdown when we have to hand everything over to the cashier, for some reason the cups were the biggest enticement today. This system has worked well for me in the past *sigh*.
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