Today I was changing Obsidian's diaper. A couple months ago, he had no awareness or control. Now he does, and he could be toilet trained. Except for the fact he does not want to. If you try to sit him on the potty, typically he will pee on your leg. On purpose. Punishing him for that is only limitedly useful as it has stopped the peeing on the leg, but he won't pee on the potty. He will either grab a diaper and hold it in front of him and pee or simply wait until a new diaper is put on.
As I was changing his diaper, I asked if he wanted to go to the potty. He hesitated and got a glint in his eye. I was not sure what was coming next but I knew it wouldn't be an agreement to pee in or sit on the potty. I thought of preemptively telling him to not make a smart alec remark. It ran though my head how if I said that prior to any comment being made, I would then be my father. Who so frequently when I was a child, and a teenager, and to be honest up until when he passed away when I was an adult, would just tell me "Don't be a smart alec" just prior to when I was going to make a "smart alec" remark. At the same time, I was wondering what was about to come out of Obsidian's mouth. My dad admitted when I was an adult, sometimes he would just let me go because he was curious to what I was going to say. I decided I wanted to hear what he was about to say so I didn't cut him off.
"You take me to Grandpa's house and I will go potty there." A glint in his eye.
"You mean Grandma's house?" While my mom lives in the same house she did when my dad was alive, Obsidian doesn't think of it as "Grandpa's house". Pyrope and Obsidian are familiar with stories of both of their grandpas, but never met either of them.
"No. Grandpa. You take me see Grandpa, I go pee potty." Triumph in his eye as he marched away with his new diaper on. Briefly looking over his shoulder as I was still sitting on the floor contemplating the comment.
So while the thoughts of my dad having to deal with my "smart" comments in the flash before I knew I was going to have deal with a "smart" comment coming from my child, I couldn't help but think that my dad was watching, laughing in his deep belly laugh, and commenting how revenge is sweet. A child that takes after me. For the most part, my dad got the brunt of my "smart" remarks. It has already become clear, that Obsidian directs the majority of his "smart" remarks at me, not Jet. Jet gets some, but not nearly as much as I do, even when you consider how much more time I spend with Obsidian.
God give me the grace and strength that he gave my dad to deal with me. He knows I need it. (Yes, my mother was involved, very involved, but she never quite knew how to react to things like this. Plain flat out misbehavior she was fine with. Me with my comments that I shouldn't have said but were really appropriate, not so much. So that I always had to deal with my dad. His reactions were always "reasonable" to me, my mom would react so wildly different that it was fairly rare that I would make such comments to her, even by the time I was 4 or 5). The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
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