Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Cleaning Up That Potty Mouth!

Parental advisory: Parents, if you are faint-hearted about discipline, do not read this post. If you are positive, controlled, and kind to your children, please go elsewhere. If your children respond well to non-violent parenting, best you hot-click out of here.

Whatever you do, please don't post any negative feedback regarding how I am "crossing the line" with the forthcoming tale of Crabtot crime and punishment. As with the sometime spanking, I do some things that some readers don't like. I know I'm not nice. That's the whole bloody point of this blahg. And as you will see, Crabtot can take it. But if you can't please do buzz off rather than leave me the sort of comment that you know is going to tweak my vibe. Remember, I never promised you a rose garden. I promised you a crabby mommy and those are two very different things, roses and crabmommies.

If you prefer to feel cozy, go elsewhere. Like, to Babble.com where they discuss their top 5 baby blankets of all time. Maybe you will find it cozier than I did. Their favorite blankie? Dwellbaby's cashmere offering at $137 per lovey. Talk about predisposing your kid to the finer things in life! Not to mention how sad Mom would be if she lost that dang Bangy. Forget baby's tears, if it were me I'd be gnashing my teeth at that $137 lying somewhere out there...Jay-sus. Honestly. Bloody. Ridiculous.

So. Thank you for staying, you hale and hearty moms and dads, and for accepting me though I may be a little less cuddly than some. Cheap and mean mommy-o? Why, thank you for saying so!

Okay enough prattle. To the point: Crabtot has of late become demonstrably more impossible by the second and has taken not only to delivering constant streams of wiseass-ery, but also to delivering very articulate and highly detailed accounts of what she plans to do with her parents for being, well, her parents (put you in the garbage, in the toilet, gonna poop on your head, blah blah blah). Three is indeed a little different from two and in our case a tad tougher, right now at any rate. Anyhoo, Crabtot has learned quite a few sassy words and is also enjoying the pleasures of parental name-calling (Poophead, Stupidhead).

We all know this is normal and maybe even funny to those with undeveloped senses of humor, but it is also utterly tedious to listen to and downright irksome for the fiftieth time in a day. We have tried it all: punishment, bribery, reward, spank, no spank, positive talking, careful explanations of feelings, shouting, blithely ignoring, etc. etc. And then we tried something new yesterday.

Tot and I were having a tricky morning and so, out of the blue, I just suddenly said "Let's share a donut at Albertson's today." Now, I am never the mom who lets the kid have the bloody donut at the grocery store. I am a Fruit Leather kind of gal. So this was big. I was just so tired of the miserable Mom-Tot kvetching and carping and crabbing! I thought maybe I would mess with her mind and lighten the mood by offering something as insane and delicious and just plain out of place in our day as a big, fat, trans-fatty, totally-yummy donut.

Response: [whiny voice] "I don't want a donut. Donuts are stupid." Followed by some name-calling and potty talk. I tell her if she wants to talk about poops and so forth that she can do it in the bathroom. I tell her if she calls me one more name one more time then we are going to wash that dirty little mouth out with soap (something I have threatened before, but never done). Then we go to Albertson's.

At the supermarket she behaves very well. And while I had decided not to purchase proposed donut on account of rude reception to the idea, I decided for once that consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, and since she was behaving, and I wanted a donut, I decided to just get the damn donut. So we had it. And it was good.

On the way home, the name-calling began. And the hobgoblin in me said that it would be plain wrong not to follow-through on the long-threatened soaping of the mouth. And so, summoning my inner cruelmom (not hard, trust me), I followed through.

Going into the house she began to cry in anticipation and I told her that Mom felt sad and awful about it too, but that we had to clean up that potty mouth. We went into the bathroom. She stood on her stool. I lathered my hands and asked her to open her mouth. I lathered her tongue and cheeks. The tears suddenly disappeared and she smiled and smacked her gums. I waited, hoping the soap would sting or make her cry again. Idle dreams, people, idle dreams. She smiled. I waited. Added a bit more soap. She rinsed. She left the bathroom happy as a clam. "I've got a nice clean mouth now," she said.

Yeah, right. Poopyhead.

(New post today at the bloglet. Puhleeze come over. You know you want to.)

28 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice lead up to a HI-Larious ending.....damn these tots! Yours is especially clever, eh? Try a fast-forward fantasize to the teen years! God Save Us All!

Leann I Am said...

Hee hee hee...I think you need to buy nastier-tasting soap!

Have you tried playing the 'Santa card.' Works WONDERS in my house.

Your daughter sounds adorable to the rest of us...bu tshe must be EXHAUSTING for you! Hang in there. I've always thought that THREE was harder than TWO myself!

Mamma Sarah said...

Fels Naptha soap works really good in the "cleaning up the potty mouth" department. Just stick the bar in there and make her hold it (like in the Christmas Story Movie).

Good luck.

dawn224 said...

My mom once spanked me, I went in the bathroom, rubbed lotion on it, came back out and said "It doesn't hurt anymore."

I'm surprised I'm still alive.

skape7 said...

I can't stop laughing! But, poor you!! I think most mums can identify with the tedious and frustrating stuff as well as the backfiring discipline!

Matter Of Fact Mommy said...

i am in love with you, crabmommy. my almost-4-yr-old is a pain to be around - so much so that both of his maternal grandparents will leave the house quickly when he's in 'one of his moods'... and that's his grandparents! you can only imagine how MOMMY feels! sigh.

Nicole Pelton said...

Poor you, but that was funny...I can't believe she did that. And those blankets! the cheapest is $49, holy cow.

Liz said...

I have a very vivid memory of the day my beleagured mother washed my mouth out with Dial soap. She actually stuck the bar in my mouth and coated the inside of my mouth and tongue with it. It tasted awful. Perhaps a heavier hand is needed!

Just found your blog and love it. Am adding you to my blogroll on my site if you don't mind!

Tarheel Rambler said...

Turns out you're not a bad mommy after all...at least not in my eyes. A little soap in the mouth, a few swats on the fanny, etc., are sometimes necessary. I have five grown children who survived all of that and don't appear to be emotionally or psychologically scarred. The oldest is 35 and the youngest is 20, so there should have been some signs of permanent damage by now.

The one question you might ask yourself about Crabtot is where she learned those names in the first place. Maybe addressing the problem at the source would be more effective. :0)

Tar Heel Ramblings

info@thebabymarketplace.com said...

Too funny!

Unknown said...

Too funny! I know, not for you! We constantly got our mouths full of soap when we were kids, my two older brothers and I! The worst trouble we got into was when Dad happened to walk out the back door as the three of us were leaning out of our bedroom windows all spitting the soap out of our mouths! Don't remember the punishment for that...probably blocked it from my memory! We got dish soap, probably Pamolive, rubbed into our tongues so the taste would linger!

Crabmommy said...

dish soap! That sounds MUCH more promising than that tasty bar of Dove. I mean, the Dove peeps make chocolate too, so no wonder Ctot loved it so!!

Unknown said...

ROFLMAO. Reminds me of the Orbitz commercial.

OK, out of sheer desperation to get the "I hate yous" washed away, I did the dishsoap route with my daughter. I think she was like, um, 4ish. I put it on my finger and rubbed it on her teeth like I was brushing them. I walked away, annoyed but somewhat satisfied that THIS would stop the mouthing off.

That girl, that little girl of MINE, looked right at me, squinted her eyes and said, "Taste good".

I had to put myself in a time out.

So, if you use dish soap, don't use candy apple.

LizLSB said...

Awesome :) Gotta love a kid who likes a clean mouth.

Anonymous said...

To this day, the smell of Ivory soap makes my stomach turn. I got my mouth washed out when my 7 year old brother taught 4 year old me to call the neighbor kid an "m---f--er." It was worth it. He totally was.

Anonymous said...

Are you insane? You are not to fit to be a mother of anything living or dead.The reason why your daughter acts the way she does is her complete lack of affection. You are supposed to be her best friend. Perhaps your horror story should be forwarded to DCF.

Anonymous said...

Whoa!! Mommy Jenny, you need to take a chill pill. Do you not understand satire when you see it? For crying out loud, woman. Did pregnancy cause the part of your brain that appreciates humor to die? Next time you venture out into the big old Internet, maybe you should let another adult with a better grasp on reality control the mouse and keyboard.

Whew!!!!

Anonymous said...

Oh! And if you think being your child's best friend is a good parenting practice, get back to me the first time your child is arrested or needs a bit more parenting than a hug or a pat on the head. Believe me, if you use that approach to parenting, that day will come.

Anonymous said...

SATIRE? Inflicting pain or discomfort on a child on purpose is not satire it's abuse.HUMOR? No I have not lost any sense of humor as obviously you have. That kind of humor is sadistic.As an example my parents never hit me and they are my best friends. Inow have a BS degree,happily married,live in a fabulous large colonial in Fairfield county,I am astay at home Mom and have a wonderful husband and daughter who are loved. Perhaps you all should get the misery out of your lives and learn how to parent.

Anonymous said...

MommyJenny: You've already made it clear you don't like this blog. Makes me wonder why you keep coming back here.

Oh, and I've done my parenting. Raised five children and have five grandchildren. My children are doing quite well thank you. Two registered nurses, a senior manager in charge of network administration for a large corporation, a professional musician and a special needs adult.

Discipline didn't do them any harm and probably helped them become happy, productive adults.

crabmommy said...

Lee! So glad to have you stop by my blog. Will check out THR just as soon as I can get back to the USA and finish my African travels (replete with internet disconnects every step of the way...). MommyJenny, not sure what your "living in a fabulous colonial house" has to do with the success of your parenting, but really, GOOD FOR YOU!...As for reporting me to DCF, PLEASE do! I can't wait to blog about it! Not sure if they would find my "abuse" all that noteworthy, especially as Crabtot actually ENJOYED the soap (did you read that part?) but hey, go for it! I look forward to it with my usual crabacious glee.

Anonymous said...

Crabmom - I adore you! Keep it real!

mommyjenny - My parents actually DID abuse me. I have my MBA and a Ph.D, also live in Fairfield County - though in a refurb Craftsman style house instead of a McMansion(we're neighbors, tee hee!), am the breadwinner in my family, take the train into Manhattan everyday while my husband keeps guard over the homestead and wee ones, and you bet your ass if there is any trash talking there are soap-tasting sessions and backside swats to be had, indeed!

Don't attribute your lifestyle to anything other than it is: being a less interesting rip-off of June Cleaver. Leave it to Beaver may have been braodcast in black & white, but as I recall that also included some shades of gray. You might try them out (the shades of gray, that is) sometime!

Anonymous said...

i can't stop laughing... this is my first time on this blog and i don't feel so alone in the world all of sudden (p.s. went got right on the internet as soon as i read the article in the NYMag)!!!
thank you thank you thank you!!!

crabmommy said...

Courtney and our new anonymom, welcome and thank YOU! It's so good to have you as readers. Occasionally even I think I am perhaps a tad too dark or that the point I'm trying to make by blogging is lost...good to know that some see I have something more in mind that mere indulgent crabbing (though that, too!:). I am glad if I can make others feel less alienated. Certainly that is something I have often felt as a mom. Talking out the bad is good! Because the good...doesn't bear talking about, IMHO. And Courtney, your comment re. the shades of grey I thought was very well put. Thanks for commenting.

Anonymous said...

Crabmom, I think I love you. I never quite fit in on the "mommy sites"... I think my sarcasm and realistic view of my children is lost on most moms. I love the kids, but wow they can put a person through it.

With the birth of my first son, I wanted to be that "perfect mom" the one that cuddled and coddled and bought $200 blankets. By the time the second son came, I realized that spit up doesn't wash out of $200 blankets quite as well as old towels do. And now that the third boy has come and managed to survive to age 4 they are lucky to get towels!! (Just how many towels does one tiny person really need after a shower, that is, not counting the 3 that I have to use to mop up the floors after each one bathes)

To the mom who wants to be best buds with her kids... good luck with that sister.

Got this blog marked, tagged, faved and all else that brings me back quickly! Nice to know I am not the only sarcastic mother fumbling along.

Anonymous said...

Crabmom, you rock. It is good to know that there are other moms out there that don't bow to the demands of the ALMIGHTY CHILD. I stumbled across your blog and I'll be reading it from now on.
BTW, Mommy Jenny appears to have a large stick lodged in her posterior. It must be hard to walk like that.

Anonymous said...

OMG!! I love you!! I found that the liquid dish soap - well the build up that is on the spout if it is very effective....Scrape it on the back of the front teeth and make it sit for 2 minutes. Now, I wouldn't do what I couldn't handle to my kids, so I HAVE tried it and 2 min. is HELL!! Gets the point across...LOL

Commenter Abbi said...

Also got here from the NY mag article. Nice plug!

Anyway, that mommy jenny must be a joke. I can't believe anyone says "you're supposed to be her best friend" with a straight face.

I am not above spanking (just had an incident the other night when my 4 and two year old were screaming and whining in stereo. My six-month pregnant self just couldn't take it!), though I don't think i could stomach a mouth soaping.

But great blog and I'll definitely put it on my bloglines.

Powered By Blogger