Adventures in Ineffectual Parenting

So if the previous post were not enough to convince you that I have good and bad mommy days, let me offer up this afternoon's frivolities.

Khubz is boycotting nap. Fine. We're at home. She's staying in her room. Thumper has woken up and he and I are playing in the living room.

Khubz asks if she can join us. Nope. Not yet. Go back to your room. And she goes. I think I may have mastered this casual authority thing. Sure.

So naptime ends and I go in her room. She is naked, having cast off her dress and pulled off her diaper.

"Oh. You're naked. And what's that on your chair?" several small whitish blocks. Oh. A chunky board book that has had all the pictures torn off before it was shred to bits. "Oh. I see that you've torn up your book. Hmpf." This is supposed to buy me time.

She puts her arms up in the air and smiles like she has been chosen to be on the price is right. "And I peed!!!" Smiles all around.

I look at the room. She has taken all her sheets and pillows off her bed. This includes the plastic sheet we keep on her mattress. And she then pissed all over her raw, unprotected mattress.

I left the room.

I couldn't think of a right way to respond so I left. She said she was coming with me because "someone comin to play with me!" "No." I tell her "No one is coming to play with you. Ever. Never. Ever. Ever." I shut her door and she begins to cry. This makes me feel slightly better.

What is a natural consequence for this?

Make her clean up the mattress? Would that involve cleaner and water? She would see that as a gift, a grand adventure.

Make her sleep on the floor? We leave for TX tonight. She'll be sleeping in the car and a hotel room (also a gift, a grand adventure.)

Make her stay in her room until Scully returns home? Just. Not. Possible. This makes me feel sad.

So I decided to take the mattress. It is a bright sunny day. I put the mattress outside to let the sunlight work its magic. And what did we find?

A gift. All the lost precious toys that slipped under or alongside the mattress. Found! Treasures! Gifts!!

"Oh!" a smiling oh. "Sheep! Thank you Mommy!"

I boiled with anger.

In the end I put her room in time out which only punished me.

It will be nice to be in Texas.

"Where's Tita? Where's Tata? They've missed you. Go with them."