Wednesday: what is a simple bite on the buttocks among friends?

Today, in continuing with our let's-run-the-grandparents-ragged theme, we went to the zoo!








Our little Wilmington zoo is actually quite low-key. It is not one of these "Oh lordy, we dropped $20 a piece to get through the door, so if we don't make a whole day out of it my wallet will scream in protest" kinds of zoos. Really, it is the perfect toddler zoo. Little kiddos, like mine, are free, and big people are $5 each. And the whole zoo can be taken in at a seriously leisurely pace in about 45 minutes. And the refreshment stand serves only hot dogs and ice cream. And there are so many little monkeys, they almost give them away at the door. Jacob even liked the monkeys and watched them skitter around the ceiling of their monkey cells. My darling Isaac? He liked the snakes and the burrowing owl. There's no accounting for taste in this household.

In a spark of mommy-creativity, we went wild with all things "zoo" for the rest of the day. At the zoo gift shop, they had a large pit of little zoo critters, and Isaac helped me stuff a cylinder full of animals we knew from Polar Bear, Polar Bear to take home with us. This evening after dinner, we watched Madagascar. Then to round out the day, Isaac and I read Polar Bear, Polar Bear together at bedtime and talked about which animals we had seen in person.

Interspersed amongst all this niceness and relative good-boy-ism was dinner. The 'rents and I got a wild craving for some pasta and, in a moment of sheer stupidity, I suggested we brave the experience of dining outside the home with two teeny bruisers for the third time this week. Now, I was a little motivated to try an Italian restaurant on our Main Street, mainly because Dada and I don't date anymore, and so I don't get the chance to eat out at the many varied and unique restaurants our downtown has to offer.

This was pretty dumb for a number of reasons. First, to get to this restaurant, we had to pass by the dinky green space with the brick circle that Isaac loves to run around. Second, Isaac can't sit in his chair for the length of dinner even while we are at home. Third, I keep forgetting that, as much as I might try to serve it to him, Isaac is just not fond of pasta anymore, and is rather fond of pitching a fit and starving himself in lieu of trying to even touch it with a fork. Looking back, we probably would have been better off cooking. But then you don't have four boxes of pasta leftovers in your fridge, now do you?

To start with, Isaac and I had to get some more change for the parking meters from our waitress and head back to the car, an excellent task since I saw that sitting still was already a challenge for him. But Isaac insisted that he would not have his hand held as we walked along the sidewalk next to this crazy-busy street, nosiree. I, knowing better, would not have it, so I picked him up to carry him as he kicked and screamed in his fury of immobility. Once he was in my arms, he stopped his fussing and writhing and looked at me with stillness and complete clarity.

Then he cocked back his arm and smacked me open-handed across the face.

He's tried to smack me, or, more often, smack the air in my general direction, before. He gets a time-out for this. He's never really hit me. When he did tonight, I was rather proud of how I acted. I grabbed and held his arm and sternly said, "Excuse me? What did you just do?!?!?" Isaac looked away and, knowingly, said, "I don't know." "You just hit me in the face. That hurt me. You need to say you're sorry to mommy." "Mommy, I sorry." "Okay, then." And we were okay. Even when we got back to the restaurant, he was cool. He ate some bread. He drank some root beer. He sat still as they fetched our food at lightning speeds.

And then, God forbid it, but they set a plate of pasta down in front of him. Those awful people. He tried wriggling out of his chair. I told him he was to sit there and eat while the rest of us ate. He smacked me in the face again. I turned his chair away and gave him a time-out. I turned him back towards his food. He tried to escape again. I told him that wasn't an option. He smacked me in the face again. I took him in the bathroom and gave him a stern talking to, making him repeat with me "We don't hit." I sat him back in his chair. He tried climbing down from it. I sat him back up, and he smacked me in the face.

At that point I did what any parent who finds herself out of options and going completely bat-poo insane would do; I took him in the bathroom and spanked his precious and clothed hiney twice. It wasn't hard at all, but enough to shock the crap out of him. You know, because that's how to effectively teach my kids that hitting is wrong.

Did it work? Not really. By the time we'd stooped so low, I'd realized that this was just a bad idea altogether, that Isaac wasn't going to sit, that he wasn't going to eat his dinner. I sat him on my lap and we rifled through my purse. When that got old, I pulled out my Secret Super Emergency Stash of jellybeans. He sat perfectly still in his chair and ate them, one by one, as Meemaw and Pawpaw finished their dinners, and I took my turn holding Jacob as I fought back tears of utter frustration, guilt, and helplessness. My kid hit me, and I couldn't convince him that it was wrong. My kid ate root beer, some french bread, and a small box of jellybeans for dinner. My kid is a holy terror whom I can't take anywhere. Worst of all, I spanked my kid, which I preach to Dada all the time is a horrible way to discipline our child. Poor Meemaw and Pawpaw, whose memories are still fresh from when they had a little girl his age a quarter of a century ago, are very understanding, but it is still so embarrassing. He'll grow out of it, right? Right?