My least favorite part of being a mom is punishing my child (S is too young to need punishment). It is a neccessary evil. I want my kids to be well-behaved and obedient for many reasons, but mainly because they need to be. Today was one of those days. For some reason lately L has decided to spit out liquids from her mouth onto the kitchen floor, living room carpet, onto her toys, books, and just about everywhere. I don't know exactly why she is doing it. I suspect she sees her little brother, who is only three months old, drool and spit-up.
On countless occasions I've explained to her that it's not nice to spit, especially with a mouth full of juice or milk. Today she decided she would spit out a mouth full of juice on her indoor slide and watch it trickle down to the carpet. I said "No!" and cleaned up the juice spit at least three different times. And then she took a mouth full of juice and spit it onto her library books. "Uuugh!" I don't want to pay for those books if they get ruined. Luckily the books were closed and they have plastic jackets on them so the clean-up was easy. But that was the final incident and I was tired of L not listening to me any longer! I scooped her up and whisked her to my bedroom and closed the door. I sat her on the bed and told her what she had done wrong, yet again, and then I spanked her. She cried. I wanted to cry too because I hate that part of parenting. She calmed down quickly and I loved on her. We then went about our day.
After naptime today she woke up happy and rested. I took her into my room to put on her shoes before going outside to play. I sat her up on my bed to put her shoes on and she said, "Mommy spanked my big bare bottom." I wanted to crack up. I have no idea where she got the "big bare" part. And then when Daddy got home today the first thing she said to him was, "Mommy spanked me." Wow! That made me feel like a huge winner! Of all the very cool things we did together today, she decided to point out the spanking. That wasn't the first spanking she had ever received, but I guess it made more of an impact than all the rest -- or now she's verbal enough to talk more about it.
Nevertheless, I hated to spank her. I'm sure it won't be the last. But one thing is for sure, there was no more spitting for the rest of the day. We'll see about tomorrow.