The important thing about this is that I am full aware of my own insanity and have come to terms with it, although many times I don't realize that I am being crazy until several days later. One way you can always tell when I am on an upswing is when I spend more money than normal, especially if it is on things like $103 wireless routers, or a 16 pack of forks. Likewise, a downswing will cause me to sleep more often than not, dread every day tasks like brushing my teeth and, more importantly, will usually result in infrequent, short blog posts. This is why I could never write a book. I am not stable for a long enough period of time to accomplish anything. Anyway, I have no idea why I think anyone cares about this. Today's post isn't about me being weird, it is about my kid and how I prevent her from following suit.
Since the day I found out that we were having a girl I knew we were going to have our hands full. Women by nature are completely illogical and insane to begin with. Yes, this counts for all of you. Every single one of you. I'm sorry, but that's the way it is. It isn't your fault. It is some sort of gene you are born with. Or maybe it is just that whole 'cycle' thing. That seems like a weird thing to have to deal with. If you combine that with my overall weirdness and moodiness, likewise with Monica, you have a ticking time bomb. Luckily for us, Av has managed to maintain a fairly steady mental demeanor thus far. She is absolutely a weirdo, but emotionally she is almost always happy unless she is tired. Good for her. We're doing a nice job, I think.
There is one disturbing trend that has surfaced, however. The baby has a complete inability to let potentially traumatic things go. The best example was school. Remember the whole school idea? She was pretty much afraid of any adult that resembled a teacher for about two weeks afterward. We couldn't even go to the library. I had initially chalked that behavior up to the trauma of the whole school experience and being so young and all, but recently she has started to show a pattern. When she doesn't like something, or more importantly something scares her or makes her sad, she is constantly looking out for it and doing everything she can to prevent it from happening.The best example I can give is something that happened at Target today, and has been happening the past few times we've been there.
At the Target near our house they have set up a toy display that features this guy:
From what I understand from the display, he is supposed to be Big Foot. He moves around and walks and talks and growls. I am pretty sure he is designed to be a ferocious but friendly type guy, kind of like Mr. T, but he terrifies the baby. The display is inside a plastic case and you have to press a button to activate him. Having no idea that he would scare her I showed him to her one day, garnering a pretty negative response. A few weeks later Av was being a brat in the store so Monica walked past it and hit the button again, knowing it would scare her, in an effort to teach her a lesson about payback- or something. Anyway, Big Foot was greeted with the same result. Was that a mean thing for her to do? Absolutely not. She deserved it. Kids can be dicks sometimes.
Well, that second encounter must have done something to really screw her up because the past two times we have gone to Target she has started freaking out in the parking lot. Usually when Av encounters something that she can't identify she refers to it as 'That Guy.' Thus, when she doesn't want to be around something she will say 'Bye bye, That Guy.' Well, that started up almost immediately when we got out of the car. She clung to me like she did when I dropped her off at school, like a Koala, and just kept yelling 'Bye bye That Guy!' Ok. I get it, kid, but we need some stuff and we have to go in the store. Relax. The entire time we were in the store the kid was in a panic. Wouldn't sit in the cart, even cried at one point when we turned down an aisle that was in sight of the display. All she did while we were checking out is remind me that we were leaving and we weren't going to see that guy. Like I was for some reason just going to run over there real quick and press his 'try me' button just to be a dick. So dramatic. So unnecessary. I don't know what to do. I don't think we can shop at Target anymore.
In a somewhat related story, we were at a Tedeschi's yesterday and there was a stupid Halloween display with some scary looking zombie. She did a less panicked version of the 'Bye bye That Guy' thing the whole time there, too. Then the one-toothed, mustached old lady behind the register, who was about 300 times scarier than the zombie, decided that we would be the one customer a day that she interacts with and made the situation worse by basically harassing the baby. She did this by yell/ speaking in her three packs-a-day voice 'I don't know what you're saying sweetheart!' 'Your bottle died?' 'Did your bottle die?' Yes. Her bottle died. It woke up one day, took one too many pain killers with an anti-depressant and blew up his heart Heath Ledger style. It was tragic. We are actually coming from the funeral. We're all still a little bit shaken up. He was so young. What kind of ridiculous assumption is that? I get it. You don't understand what she is saying. She is a toddler. You aren't supposed to. Just shut up and do your job. I didn't come here for the great interaction, I came here for a Red Bull and a package of hot dog buns to feed to the ducks. You have one tooth and a female mustache, don't you know by now that kids are terrified of creatures like you? I was so concerned with keeping this beast from scaring my child, in fact, I didn't even realize that she charged me $2.69 for the hot dog buns despite the giant, yellow .99 CENTS! sticker on the front. So you've scared my kid and ripped me off. Thanks Mustache Mandy.
I am probably being way to dramatic about all of this. She isn't even 2 yet, so she won't remember most of this trauma, but for some reason I still overcompensate whenever she is upset and give her like 6 pop sickles or let her watch TV. In fact, I should probably try and get her used to dealing with the little things now while she still doesn't understand a lot of things. Her life is going to be hard enough trying to manage this confusing little science experiment we all blindly live through every day without me getting in the way.
No comments:
Post a Comment