Wit and Wisdom, week of May 1

Here is this week's wit and wisdom, a collection of the funny things Maggie has said throughout the week. Any new words she uses will be in italics:

• "My new haircut has groaned on me." (she kept hearing me tell her that it would grow on her)
  
• "Mommy, my camera has a nose like your camera does!" (talking about the lens)


• "I don't like going to bed -- I like staying up with you. And eating sugar."


• Freaking out: "Mama, mama, my blanket has a huge hole in it! You HAVE to fix it!!" The "blanket" she was crying about was actually one of those knit poncho things, and the "hole" in question was for her head to go through!
• "This street smells like Grandma & Pop's neighborhood!"
• She was talking into a toy microphone (which really does amplify sound) and said, "Hey! My mouth comes through my ears!"

I don't have as many cute stories this week because it's been a challenging week, discipline-wise. Wednesday was the worst -- I can't even begin to count the number of timeouts and spankings she had. Everything was a battle, with her testing every limit, every boundary. I'd tell her not to touch something, and she'd immediately stick out one little finger to touch it. I'd tell her to eat her lunch, and she'd sit there defiantly, mouth closed. I told her to keep her paint on the paper or the easel, and she painted both arms and a good portion of our screened porch floor.

If that weren't bad enough, the back-talking has been even worse. She sasses constantly, even calling me Stinky Head during one timeout. At one point, I told her that since our usual punishments (timeouts and occasional spankings) didn't seem to be working at all, we needed to come up with different punishments -- like taking away TV or playdates with friends. I really thought that would get her attention, but her response was, "I don't care. I don't care if you take away all those things, or spank me, or give me timeout, or take away a marble. I'm going to do what I want." Let me just tell you, it took all the self-control I had to not swat her right there!

Five minutes later, she was in timeout AGAIN for something. In our house, a timeout isn't over until we have our Timeout Talk. Either Bobby or I (whoever put her in the timeout) sits next to her in her timeout spot (the bottom or top step, depending on which floor of the house we were on when she got in trouble). She has to tell us why she was put in timeout, and she has to apologize ... not just a cursory "I'm sorry," but a very specific, "I'm sorry for calling you a Stinky Head because it was disrespectful and hurts your feelings." Our hope is that this helps her connect between her action and its consequence. So anyway, I went to have the Timeout Talk with her and noticed a small puddle on the floor where she was sitting. It wasn't huge, but it was big enough that I wondered if she'd had an accident while sitting there. I asked her what it was, and she answered (brace yourself ...)

SPIT.

A puddle of spit.

She sat there during her whole timeout and spit onto the floor. And I absolutely HATE spit; I think it's one of the grossest things ever and never allow it. And she knows this, of course, so I can only deduce that she did it to make me mad. (Mission accomplished.) At this point, I felt desperate to do something that would get her attention. Since all of her earlier spankings had ended with her sassing, "That didn't hurt," I decided to do something I knew would hurt -- I spanked her on her bare bottom. Hard. I left a handprint. I'm not proud that it came to this, but I'm proud that I didn't do this out of anger, though I was definitely angry. I thought it through and did it very deliberately.

We had a couple of good hours on Wednesday, but most of the day was just like this, one battle after the other. My friend Alicia and I even contemplated group therapy since her daughter was acting in a similar bad way. (Maybe it's the age, since Rebekah and Maggie are both 4 1/2.) Yesterday was better (for me, anyway) since Maggie spent most of the day with Bobby's mom. I'd warned Lynda about the attitude, and when I picked Maggie up, the first words out of her mouth were, "I'm NOT going home with you, missy." I looked at Lynda and asked if she’d been like this all day, and I could tell by Lynda’s reaction that she probably had. Lynda never says anything bad about Maggie, but this time she hemmed and hawed and was like, “Well, umm, she … well … we didn’t have as much fun as we usually do, I’ll just leave it at that.” You know it's bad when Mammaw isn't fawning all over Maggie!

This morning was better until I dropped her off at school. She didn't want to get out of the car, and when Mrs. Wendy cheerfully said, "OK, hunny bunny, come on," Maggie said to her angrily, "DON'T cal me hunny bunny!" There were a couple of other semi-rude things said to the adults who tried to get her out of the car; I finally drove away half mortified and half thankful that she'll be someone else's problem for the next three hours. I foresee perhaps a note of apology to Mrs. Wendy.

Argh.