…I accidentally pushed the elevator button when I know you like to push it but I can’t undo what I did. The second I realized it, I instantly regretted it. Obviously letting you push it again wasn’t going to cut it. As if you’d let me off that easily.

…I moved the baby bath but you put it behind your bedroom door so I couldn’t see it when entering your room. My bad though, I had no idea you were playing with it and it was not to be touched, let alone moved.

…I flushed the toilet, I washed your face with cold water, I unzipped your coat, I turned on the light, I turned off the light, …

Is it normal that I have to ask my toddlers permission to flush the toilet, permission to do anything for that matter? I thought I was supposed to be in charge here…again, my bad.

My kids brains, especially my son’s, work in mysterious ways. When things don’t go the way he wants, he just blocks. Sometimes I know why he’s upset, other times it’s a mystery he refuses to unveil, seriously testing my patience. I recognize a lot of myself in him which is very confronting. When he’s too shy to utter a word to his gym teacher, he reminds me of me. When he’s lying on the floor whining over something I said or did, giving me the silent treatment and the evil eye, he reminds me of me. But also when he’s singing to himself while playing, he reminds me of me.

I came across this book the other day: Discipline without damage: how to get your kids to behave without messing them up by Vanessa Lapointe. I was instantly intrigued as I sooo want my kids to behave, desperately trying not to mess them up in the process. Obviously I didn’t read the entire book since, you know, having three littles ones and being slightly sleep deprived, I find enough things to do in whatever spare time I have. I did read an article about it on the Huffingtonpost which I guess, gives the gist of things. What I found most interesting is the concept that children are not small adults and don’t behave or think like adults do, which I tend to forget sometimes. I do expect my kids to behave rationally, ‘normal’ if you like, and I now realize that’s unfair given that their brain is still developing, and I don’t mean to be condescending, apparently something to do with their frontal and pre-frontal cortex being under development. So when I say my son’s brain works in mysterious ways I never realized that there’s a very logical explanation for this. “Children are not capable of self-control, impulse management, and self-regulation. It is not that they are trying to mess with your head. They literally CANNOT control themselves, especially when emotions are running high.” I especially like that they are not deliberately trying to mess with your head, could have fooled me 🙂