One of the first questions that everyone has asked me about our transition-to-two-kids is, “So how is Ali taking it?”
And, since Future-15-Year-Old-Ali is feeling pretty indignant and forgotten due to my lack of blogging-record of her life lately (thanks to an influx of posts about pregnancy and childbirth), I figured it was time to throw her a bone.
Err, a post.
Anyway.
Ali.
To answer the question, she’s adjusting fairly well. Or at least, she’s not trying to flush Noah down the toilet or mail him to Bangladesh, so I will call that success.
She has, however, felt the need to express her feelings with the help of a third party.
And that third party happens to be her tummy.
I don’t know why she picked her tummy to be her evil alter-ego over any other perfectly fine body part, but at any rate, her tummy has quite the attitude.
(All while Ali stays pristinely innocent, of course.)
It goes like this…
I tell Ali to do something, and she wanders off to the other side of the room, with her back to me.
I see her pull her shirt up, and in a quiet, sweet voice, ask, “What did you say?”
Then I hear an angry, bitter, apparently-struggling-with-a-bit-of-new-sibling-adjustment voice say, “NO!!”
She puts her shirt down, turns around, and says, “I would, but my tummy says ‘NO!’”
“Well, then, you need to tell your tummy to be wise and obey your Mommy.”
She turns back around, lifts her shirt, and quietly says, “You need to be wise and obey my Mommy.”
“NO!”
Shirt down, turns around.. “My tummy doesn’t know how to be wise, because it doesn’t have a tummy-Mommy or a tummy-Daddy to teach it to be wise.”
“Well, then, your tummy needs to quit talking until it can learn to be nice.”
Tummy has worked up a rap-sheet of being defiant at bedtime, mealtimes, and has been intensely desirous of getting it’s way – especially when I’m tied up with nursing Noah.
And, although obedience is always achieved, no matter how many times Ali tells Tummy (nicely, of course) to shut it’s Big Tummy Mouth, it always seems to need to have the last word.
Every now and then, Tummy will have a change of heart. After Ali (and, I suppose, Tummy), woke up from their nap yesterday, Ali informed me excitedly, “My tummy has gotten a little nicer!! Would you like to talk to it again?”
Unfortunately, it didn’t take Tummy long to backslide into it’s Foolish Tummy Ways.
So, in light of Ali’s Tummy Problems (and resulting discipline that naturally occurs when you have a disobedient Tummy), I decided to try a bit of positive reinforcement, as well. On Monday, Ali and Tummy had a perfectly delightful morning, so I decided to let them skip their nap and go to a birthday party with my Mom.
Of course, I made an astronomically HUGE deal out of the privilege of skipping nap and going to a party as being a reward for having a happy heart (and Tummy) all day long, hoping to further encourage Tummy’s developing maturity.
Ali was thrilled, enjoyed the party immensely, and seemed to have REALLY responded to the positive reinforcement.
I, of course, was ridiculously proud of my brilliance in coming up with the idea to turn the party-attendance into a reward, and couldn’t wait to brag to Chris about my top-notch parenting.
And, to prove to him what a FABULOUS impact that I made on our child, I asked her about it in front of him.
“Ali, tell Daddy why you got to go to the party with Gramamma today!”
“To make biscuits!”
(No biscuits were made in the attendance of that party.)
“Umm…no… Let me be more specific. What did you DO to EARN the reward of getting to go to the party?”
“GUMMIES!!!”
(No gummies were had in the attendance of that party.)
“WHAT??”
“GUMMIES!!”
“Ali. Why did Mommy let you go to the party?!?!?!?!”
“GUM-MIES!!!!!”
Obviously, Chris was unbelievably impressed with the impact I had made on our child.
…and I think I’ll stick to being proud of my parenting just because of the fact that Tummy hasn’t tried to flush, or Bangladeshian Airmail, Noah.
Yet.
Oh my goodness, that is TOO funny! I have heard of a lot of different response-behaviors to new siblings but I have never heard of an evil tummy! Lol.
Bug did the whole “I want to be a baby” thing. That got old REALLY fast. Thankfully we broke the habit without too much pain…on my part. Haha:)
Glad to hear Ali is doing well with the adjustment, other than the evil tummy. Hopefully it shapes up soon. :)
Hee hee, I guess it’s better than sitting on her little brother (not that I ever did such a thing to my little sister … ahem). Although, I am reminded of that scene in Lord of the Rings where Gollum is arguing with himself!
How funny!! And props to Ali for not harming Noah, yet! When Carson was born I was afraid to leave him in the room with Connor alone for even a second b/c I was afraid he would kill him, unintentionally of course. He would sqeeze his head, push the baby swing WAY to high, and hang from the bassinet almost causing it to fall over one to many times! Wow, am I glad that phase of life is over, now if I can keep them from killing each other while playing the Wii!! :)
I can imagine that the Wii WOULD be a very dangerous young-boy activity… maybe THAT’S what makes the Kinect a better deal… along with it’s total coolness factor that I’m totally jealous of.
wow, she has a GREAT imagination! Seriously that tummy can talk! :)
We just had haircutting in our house – lovely – but no talking tummies!
Oh no!! I’m deathly afraid of a self-haircut – that’s something that has NOT visited our house…yet!
LOL. That’s awesome. I’m glad that Tummy usually comes around. For a moment, I thought you meant that she’d developed tummy troubles… I did that when I was little. I was obedient, but every once in a while, I’d just throw up. For no other reason than I didn’t want to do what I was supposed to be doing… although, I was as upset about it as anyone. I’d totally have rather had a belligerent talking tummy.
Well, now that is one I have never heard before. She is original, you have to give her that :) I am betting it will all soon pass over. I remember that Tyler (age 17 months) would just stand in front of me and scream and cry when I was nursing Matt. If Mark was home he would handle it, but when alone with them I would just cry along with Tyler. It did pass though and nursing became a normal thing. No biggie. I just made nursing time watching tv time for Tyler. Maybe that was the wrong thing to do, but it worked.
Oh she’s good. You’ve got to give her points for imagination. Sounds like you are all adjusting well though. So good to see you Wednesday.
Too funny! It could be worse. Just wait until her elbow starts having an opinion…
Well that’s definitely a creative way to “rebel”.
I would say she is doing very well adjusting to Noah, when my 3rd sister was born, my 2nd sister(2 years old at the time) told my mom that we needed to throw her in the ditch behind our house :)
LOL – my husband and I giggled all the way through this post. It probably should be read verbatim at her wedding…
PS Maybe your mommy-tummy can teach Ali’s tummy wisdom?
very funny
I’m no shrink, but, I say she chose her tummy to talk because Noah came from yours. She’s probably trying to relate a little. But I’m glad she’s doing well. Jenna will be four and a half when our (yet-to-be-named) baby boy arrives, and I am praying she does well with the transition.
Hilarious. The tummy speaks! It reminds me of Tommy’s finger in The Shining – but not creepy like that.