Raising Godzilla

You know that parent that is whispering poor judgements about your parenting as your child screams and thrashes about on the floor while you calmly sit at the table ignoring everything but the ice cream cone you are eating? That used to be me. I judged you and it wasn't kind. I expected your child to cry but then I expected you to discipline your child into calming down. Period. There was no reason for your child to scream or kick and if they did, then you were to remove them from the area. If you had the poor parenting audacity to actually offer the child a sweet treat or a bribe to quiet them, oh well then, you were Satan.

I understood tantrums, or at least I thought I did, and I understood that the best way to end them was to walk away. The child would see that you were no longer standing in fascination of their performance and come running after you, sniveling apologies for being a brat.

I wasn't inexperienced when I made these judgements of you. I had already had my first child and he was an angel. I didn't fully appreciate his angelic nature until I had Chunko... or Godzilla Baby as we like to call him while he destroys our house and surrounding areas.

I AM SO SO SO VERY SORRY!!!

I cannot even begin to apologize enough to those I judged. I know that a very small fraction of the people I judged deserved it and I'm not talking about them. I'm talking about the mom that hasn't slept 7 straight hours in 4 years and is trying to read a book and eat a hot meal for the first time since giving birth. I'm talking to the mom trying to finish the grocery shopping while dragging her screaming 2 year old behind her like a dust mop because it's the only way to keep them from running away. I'm talking to the mom at the mall who keeps offering the baby cookies to keep her in the stroller and out of the display cases.

Chunko lies down in the middle of the floor and refuses to move, not caring one bit if it's in the middle of a busy walkway. He tries to jump from the moving shopping cart and tries to scale the aisle shelves. He thinks clothing racks are fortresses to be stormed. Straps and leashes are a joke. I'm sure it must be a riot to see my 2 year old flip himself over in the stroller and then crawl off still strapped in the stroller. When I walk away from his floor pounding tantrums, he just gets up and follows me. His screams become more panicked and he starts grabbing for me, trying to climb up my leg.

To make my struggles even more difficult is his size. Wrestling an angry 40 pound 2 year old is the same as trying to rope a greased pig while wearing oily rubber gloves.

I ask now for what I could not give before. I ask for understanding. I don't ask for help and frankly, say what you will about my parenting. I ask that you keep your snide comments on mute until I am past you. I can hear you over the screaming child and if I don't, my older kids can. Then they ask me why you're such a witch and I have to find the proper words to nicely explain your rudeness.

I ask that you look beyond the situation and know that you don't know the circumstances. You may see me struggling with an ill tempered 4 year old, but I'm actually struggling with a just barely turned 2 year old. He's allowed a little leeway behaviorally, I would think. I shouldn't have to walk around explaining to every passerby that he's only 2.

I know that I am getting what I have given for years and that is why I don't say anything back to the looky-loos. I just smile and walk on by or smile as I give Chunko another cookie. That's right, look at my "terrible" 2 year old, go home, and thank the heavens your child "never would act like that."