Monday night we had a battle royal with Isaac over saying thank you to Alia for taking him potty. He can talk, but he will only do it if it is his idea. He steadfastly refused to say it for an entire hour and 40 minutes, come what consequences that may. He knows that if he doesn't say please and thank you for something he wants, he will not receive that thing, but Alia had already taken him potty, and he would have been perfectly happy just to go in his pants, so what was that to him?
What does one do with a child like that?
It reminds me of my aunt once telling her daughter that if she ever spoke to her like that again she was going to wash her mouth out with soap, and my cousin going and taking a bite out of the soap herself out of pure, unmitigated spite.
We finally settled on a compromise. He said it in sign language and after doing nothing but dealing with him for that the entire time, that was good enough for us.
Negotiation was never an option with any of our other children.
He keeps us humble.
Today I took the kids to Burger King for lunch and I asked, "Okay, who wants chicken and who wants a hamburger?" They all took their turn and when I got to Isaac he said as plain as day, "Chicken." He sounded like Jordan when he said it. I had to do a double take!
Later, I went to an automatic car wash. Dillon used to ask if we could go give the car a shower every time we got in the van when he was two and three. It still is the highlight of his day when we do it, but the rest of the kids never think of it as that big of a deal. Even Isaac.
Until today.
As I pulled in, some high powered sprayers turned on making it sound like somebody was slamming into the sides of the van. Isaac instantly panicked. Oh. my. soul. did he panic. He covered his face with his hands, took a deep breath and for the longest time couldn't make a sound. Then he screamed. He was tightly strapped into his car seat, but he kept arching his back, and reaching for me in the mirror trying to get out. Jordan leaned over to hug him and kept telling him it was okay and to look at how neat it was. Isaac just grabbed onto his shoulders, hid his face in Jordan's neck and would not let go. When Jordan finally did pull away he started screaming and covered his face with his hands again. I've never seen anything like it. It's like he temporarily went insane. There was no reasoning with him. He didn't stop until we pulled back onto the road. Talk about pathological fear.
On the way home Jordan said, "Mommy, you have to blog that!" But I think that it's something that you can't really appreciate without having been there. :)
3 comments:
Poor little Issac. That reminds me of in the Nursery, he goes bananas when we run the vac. I was in there one Wed and I asked Daisy to run the vac, I forgot he went nuts the first time and I had to have her hurry and shut it off. I wait until he has gone before I run it.
Virginia
Jordan had a phobia of car washes for about two years. If I did it myself, I had to have him hold the wand. If it was automatic, it took him hours to calm down. Jeffrey's phobia was ponies. My little "cowboy" would panic and he would freak out so badly that it took a good half an hour for his heart to get back to normal.
Sign language, I love it! I wonder if it has something to do with the youngest. I don't remember Harley or Mackenzie ever giving us the grief (we still love it) that Eli has. We are trying to teach him how to talk but he refuses. He just isn't interested I guess. But he picks up on sign language very quickly and talks like crazy with his hands. I am going to find some computer classes taught by Cathy Rice (of the John Rice family) and Slim and I are going to learn much more than just basic hand signals or Eli is going to pass us up!
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