Ruthie made her own peanut butter and jelly sandwich today, which was really fun to watch until it all went down hill very quickly. She was very proud, and I was very encouraging, until there was half an inch of peanut butter involved and she was about to slap on half a cup of jam.
I tried to be very Love and Logic about it by saying, “Are you sure you want that much peanut butter?” and “Can I help you scrape some of that off?” and so forth, to which she answered Yes and No respectively.
I figured as much.
I’m only on page 52 of Love and Logic, so I wasn’t sure what to do next in this latest quest for the right formula of parenting. So what did I do? I resorted to my old ways of taking control of the situation, though I did it calmly. She simply CAN’T have half a jar of jam on her sandwich, right?
She didn’t see it that way, and threw a fit, earning herself a time-out after making her own peanut butter sandwich like a big girl.
Doesn’t that suck?
Doesn’t that just make you want to shed a tear?
It all worked out in the end, and she enjoyed eating the sandwich (minus about half the peanut butter, which I scraped off during her time out). But again I will say it: this parenting thing is EXHAUSTING.
Wait until she’s in love with a juvenile deliquent from Utah with anger problems. . .
There’s a reason why most people start off with babies. Exhausting? I’m about to slip into a coma.
Wow. Yeah. You win! 🙂
Ah, the jelly sandwiches…I over slept one morning only to wake up to the fish tank knocked over and the goldfish half dead on the floor, bread in the little tank, down the wall and all over a shelf of books, and then, the stack of bread on the windowsill with probably the 3 inches of jelly soaking through it. That TAUGHT me didn’t it. 🙂 Good for you for staying calm through the entire thing. It gives them such a feeling of accomplishment when they make their own sandwiches. BTW, Love and Logic is good, haven’t read the book, but did listen to some CDRs that my friend gave me. I forget to use that plan though. I wish you further success at it.