Sunday, January 30, 2011

A turning of the tables

So, I am all about parents uniting when you have a child that is acting up. For instance, when G was trying to discipline D after she tossed all her blocks onto the floor and he was getting her to pick them up, I did not interfere though she tried to run over to me as a diversion...
However, the other day I had a conference call and G had left the house to run a short errand. I knew he'd be back soon and the conference call was internal so it was okay if D was in the background making any noise. Unfortunately, D was not on the program and refused to play by herself while I was on the phone. In fact, she was wailing her head off because she didn't want to play blocks by herself. I was trying hard to ignore her but finally, my colleagues basically said they couldn't hear anything because she was wailing. Okaaay, let me get off and continue this call in 15 minutes. Once off the phone, I blew up. I was so angry at her I lost it. I very loudly admonished her for not being able to play by herself while mommy was working.."You have all these toys to play with, why can't you be more cooperative!!"
So, she is crying very loudly. I am ignoring her and then daddy comes home. He wants to know what's going on (and he is not oblivious to the fact that D is getting to be very temperamental and will erupt in wails for no reason) so I explain that I had a conference call and D was not cooperating even though I had brought out her blocks for her and asked her nicely to play by herself.
Daddy picks her up and tries to reason with her, "D, you should be able to play by yourself. You know mommy has to work sometimes and we have to be quiet." And she does not stop crying. Just gets louder, crying and crying. And G does not put up with that. So, he puts her down on the couch and "abandons" her..."If you're going to cry then daddy is not going to carry you. You can just sit there and cry."
And, despite the fact that I was mad at her, I then felt sorry for her. I felt like she was abandoned by her father for the moment (when this would've been the opportune time to get some coddling from daddy since mom was being so mean).
So I walked over to her and dried her tears and tried to speak to her in a gentle manner and just coddle her a little.

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