Week 236: Raisins, Discipline, and Consequences

I’ve heard that second children tend to get away with a lot more, simply by virtue of having older siblings that are still alive and so the parents think that maybe they were a bit too overprotective and so let’s let baby play with a butane lighter. Case in point: I had given Mandy a box of raisins as a snack the other day and when I glanced over to her I noticed that she was eating some that had fallen on the floor. Not a big deal, though it’s something I’ve mildly chastised her about before. But wait, what’s a little worse than eating raisins that had fallen on the floor is that Mandy was down on all fours eating the dropped dried fruit without picking it up, pressing her mouth and lips to the floor to get them up. Okay, that’s not great, that’s not ideal, that’s not the kind of thing that you’ll see recommended by anything in the Parenting section of the bookstore, but it’s still not freakout material. Except that said raisins had been dropped ON THE FLOOR IN THE BATHROOM IN FRONT OF THE TOILET. So yeah okay, that kind of thing not only crossed the line, but sprinted past it and over the horizon. She got a strong talking to and a new box of raisins.

At least this week we had backup for our parental policing, though, as my sister was in town for several days to visit and help out while Geralyn dealt with some other stuff. Samantha was delighted to see her Aunt Shawn, who came bearing more new books than the Library of Congress, including Partly Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, which I remembered loving as a kid. Sam was mostly good to her. Though she has no spawn of her own, Shawn used to work in and actually run a daycare, so what she lacks in depth of experience with this one particular child, she more than makes up for in breadth of experience with many different temperamental, difficult, and deviant rascals. And those are just the day care employees. She has also dealt with children.

Unfortunately, we apparently failed to make it sufficiently clear to Sam that by dint of overlapping DNA Shawn was in possession of full parental authority when Mommy and Daddy were out of the house. Sam had thought that this was just the nice lady that brought her books and gave her abundant attention, and once the normal parental units made the mistake of departing the premises, all bets were off. I believe doodles were drawn on the rug beneath the coffee table, and Sam was equal parts bewildered and outraged when her supposed houseguest called her on the carpet to clean up that very same carpet. She learned quickly, though, and we all got along fine after that except later that night when Sam threw a little plastic boat at my head just to make some subtle counter-point during my lecture about consequences for bad behavior. At any rate, we were all sad to see Shawn off at the airport, if for varying reasons.