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April 6, 2003
The conflict between us (Steve and I) and my mom has reached a head. Mom thinks we are two hard on Jaida and that we use physical punishment too often. At times, she has spoken up when she thinks somebody is about to get it and usually she is way off. We give Jaida plenty of chances and if she continues to break the rules and push the boundaries, there are consequences. Time out is first and if that still won’t get the message across a single tap on the hand or butt is next. This is not something that happens on a daily basis. Maybe not even weekly for a while.
The trouble began on Friday night when Mom got annoyed with me when I didn’t want Jaida to eat regular spaghetti noodles. We didn’t have any rice or corn pasta in the house because Jaida had started refusing it. When Mom told her she was having meatballs for dinner, she cried when she didn’t see any noodles. Since we had only been in the house for all of 10 minutes, I went to the bathroom before I sprung a leak. When I came back, Mom asked in a pissed off tone, “Can’t she just have some of these?” I said yes reluctantly, knowing the rest of the weekend would be pure torture. I heard Mom muttering under her breath, “You oughtta keep this stuff in the house anyway, you know she changes her mind all the time.” I let it go. Jaida ate two helpings and I knew Saturday would be one hell of a day.
The next kink in the evening came when Jarod threw his sippy cup in the floor without realizing Steve was right behind him. He’s been doing this for a while and sometimes he throws it with such force, it pops open and we have a big mess to clean up. My MIL definitely did not plan on having small children in this house on a regular basis, so that often means we are scrambling to soak spills up before it sets into the BEIGE BERBER CARPET. A nightmare I tell you, especially the time Jarod poured half a bottle of honey on the carpet before I caught him. But back to the story…Steve rushed up to Jarod (but did not hit him) and this frightened the beejesus out of him anyway. Tears and hysterical sobbing followed and Mom began slamming things around the kitchen. Jaida accused Steve of being “mean” while throwing a crumpled piece of paper at him and he tapped her on the hand. That was the beginning of what I call the wheat revenge.
On Saturday morning, Steve had to go over to the office to meet some technicians and oversee the wiring for our new computer network. (We’re finally getting to the 20th century!) I did not want to wait until Sunday to go grocery shopping so I stupidly left the kids with Mom. When I got back, the chaos began. Jaida was being very loud and disobedient. My dad had come by and he was trying to get Jaida to get down from the desk in our wall of built-ins without much success. In between trips to bring in the groceries, I was warning her each time I passed by. Dad finally pulled her down and I moved the basket she had been using to climb on. Dad and I finished bringing in the food and he left. As I put the food away, Jaida moaned and writhed on the sofa like someone possessed by a demon. Wheat revenge at it’s finest. She kicked Jarod a few times and I told her if she couldn’t sit still and be quiet, she would have to go to her room. She just ran to Mom and tried to go in the bathroom with her. I knew it was time to get out of the house.
I decided to take the kids with me to finish my errands but only after they cleaned up the horrendous mess they had made in the den. I picked up the wooden spoon that I sometimes use to get my point across and began directing Jaida to pick things up. She was moving like somebody with rigor mortis and each time I stepped towards her she would scream at me and run. She finally started picking things up but she would put one thing at a time into the toy bin and then start off in another direction. I had had enough and I went towards her but she lunged at me and started screaming in my face. I’ll admit, my temper got the best of me and I popped her on the fleshy part of her upper arm with the wooden spoon as she ran away from me.
Suddenly, Mom yelled out from across the room. “Don’t hit her like that! You could break something!” I looked at her and rolled my eyes. This from a woman who used an extension cord on me when I was nine years old. As if that outburst didn’t satisfy her level of displeasure, she went on to have a full-fledged tantrum. She banged the wall where the intercom system is and shouted, “I’m so tired of you all beating these children. I should just pack my s___ and get the hell out!” Then she stormed past me and went into the den bathroom. Jaida seemed more upset from witnessing that and she started crying again. My first instinct was to yank open the bathroom door and tell her I would help her pack. Right now.
After that, I went on auto-pilot so I wouldn’t say any of the hurtful things rushing through my head. I vacuumed, cleaned and threw away junk mail and catalogs. All the while I wanted to blame her for having me and not protecting me from her own pervert brother. I wanted to scream at her for having a nervous breakdown when I was 12 and ruining my adolescence. Most of all I wanted to blame her for my defective mental genes and passing on this misery. I wanted to tell her that I should be the one packing and leaving because of how she was always undermining my parental authority. If she thinks she can do it better, then she should take them both. She thinks I’m just screwing them up for life anyway.
Mom retreated to her room and the kids followed. I didn’t try to stop them, I just kept cleaning. Steve came home about an hour later and I met him in the driveway as I was taking out the trash. I told him what had happened and he just shook his head. I didn’t think either of us was going to confront her. Then Jaida woke up from her nap and told me, “Mommy, don’t let Nana hit the wall anymore. If she does, she might bang on it and hit the wall and then the radio will be broken ‘cause it will be glass.” This jumbled request made me realize that she had been scared by Mom’s loss of control. Later on I told Steve what Jaida had said to me. He asked me if I was going to say something to mom. I told him no, I wasn’t capable of having an adult conversation with her for a while. He said, “Don’t worry, I will.” He jumped off the bed and went to her room.
Jaida tried to follow him but he went in and closed the door. I could hear Jaida banging on the door and begging to be let in so I knew Steve was either holding the knob or had it locked. I could hear their moderately raised voices as I got the kids bath stuff together and it made me cringe. Things can’t go back to the way they were now. He must have been laying down the rules as man of the house and I knew Mom would be mad at him too. I was almost done with the baths when he came out. We didn’t talk about it but I knew he had told her to control herself in front of the children. That was his biggest concern. A while later, I passed Mom’s door to put away some laundry and I heard her crying. Yep, she was mad.
Sunday started out very tense. I hadn’t slept well and I was still unsettled from the day before. Jarod woke Mom and went into her room. Jaida snuck off too so I got up to get them. I discovered Jarod dunking a stuffed animal in the hall bathroom toilet and he was on his way to Mom’s room with it. I stopped him in her doorway and we played tug-of-war with the thing as it dripped all over the floor. Jaida got mad because I had made Jarod cry by taking his toy and she threw a piece of uncooked spaghetti at me. It poked me right under my eye and might have hit me in it if I’d been wearing my contacts instead of my glasses.
I felt the anger rise up in me and it was about to boil over. I screamed for her to go to her room immediately. As I stomped off to the den I passed Steve in the hallway. He asked what all the yelling was about and I told him. He followed me to the den and told me not to lose control and scream like that again. “You can send her to her room but you don’t have to scream.” I resisted the urge to curse him out as I frantically flipped through the paper. “It’s better than knocking the s--- out of her isn’t it? What I really wanted to do was punch her right in the face.” I decided not to let Jaida come out until that urge went away. It took about 15 minutes.
Mom realized time had gone forward and started busily getting ready for church. As usual, she was being an ass since we had an argument the day before. “Do you want me to keep combing Jaida’s hair or do you want to do it?” I thought I had better choose my words carefully. “I don’t care. If you want to, that’s fine. Since I don’t really know how and her hair isn’t long enough for me to do anything with.” She took that as a yes and she told Jaida to get her chair so she could do it before she left. That’s another responsibility of mine that she has completely taken over.
I know I’m an adult and I should be more mature, but I get tired of constantly having to defend my parenting style to the person that taught me. If she has a problem with me, she should look in the mirror. I hope I can get over this, what ever it is. I still don’t know why I got so upset. She was the one that acted like a big baby. I do know one thing; I need to start looking for full time child care for Jarod and Lambchop right now. I don’t want her to feel obligated to watch my kids ever again. Nor, do I think she is mentally capable of being tied down with another baby when I go back to work. I guess it’s time for her to just be Nana and not primary caregiver. How the hell did I end up here?
Kim
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