Lately Miles Is Kind of a Jerk

Over on Dallas Moms Blog, Heather wrote about her sweet cautious kids and how she really does not like the label "shy" and all that it implies for her kids.  I have to admit - it's a perspective I had never thought about before and I'm so glad for her insight so I can change my vocabulary and tone!

But it also got me thinking about my wild and completely opposite child.  He is anything but cautious and reserved.  In fact, lately - he's been kind of a jerk. 

Please don't get me wrong -- I absolutely adore my son.  At the end of a long day when I curl up with Miles and he wraps his chubby arms around me and nuzzles into my neck to fall asleep he usually looks up at me and giggles and my heart just melts!  Sometimes he is just so adorable -- talking in his own baby language and then at the end of his sentence he erupts in laughter because whatever he said was hilarious!!  And recently he started playing fetch with the puppy, picking up the tennis ball and throwing it straight to his own feet and then clapping for himself.  I really do love him, I promise.

Yay Miles!

But none of that changes the fact that my child is the exact opposite of Heather's sweet cautious kiddos.  And while Miles could definitely use some of those traits I just don't think he has the first clue what they are.

No, he's the kid in Target making a bee-line for the exit, without even a glance back at me, so that he can run straight into the parking lot to get hit by a car.  I swear, I cannot set this kid down anywhere where he won't find the most dangerous thing around - the road, the escalators, a deep fountain - and run straight to it and try to get hit, or cut up, or drown.  I have no less than four heart attacks every single day.

To make matters even worse is what happens the second I swoop in to save my baby's life from imminent doom.  I would hope for a little gratitude, but instead Baby Wolverine comes at me to claw my face up!   Or I meet Baby Zombie who tries to bite my face off!  Or there's Baby Crazy Eyes who suddenly goes impossibly limp and tries to slide out of my arms while biting and scratching.  His agility would actually be impressive if he wasn't being so horribly awful.

But even when he's being horrible to me, I know why and can kinda understand.  It's a horrible combination of his mother's stubbornness and a delay in his speech development.  (yup, still delayed - so he's still hitting!)

Like yesterday, for example, in Target I thought I’d let Miles get out some energy.  It was going great until suddenly he was running straight for a cart full of equipment that the employees were moving.  I swooped in to save him from getting hurt and... big mistake!  The resulting tantrum caused many scratches down my face and lasted a very long 5 minutes.  He rolled and rolled around on the floor.  First I tried ignoring him completely, but soon he was in the way of  customers so I picked him up and tried to hug him.  Then I tried to distract him with toys.  Nothing worked.  He didn't want to be ignored, but he didn't want to be hugged either.  He didn't want this toy, he wanted a different one.  And he only wanted to play with said toy right here where we were in someone's way.  And if I moved him -- the screaming!  Oh! The! Screaming!!

I'm pretty sure we convinced more than a few teenage Target employees to become celibate.

I know that things will get better, eventually Miles will start talking real words and the hitting and biting and extreme tantrums will get better. I just keep waiting for a big break through and I haven't seen one yet...