Uncivil Disobedience

Is Boo Boo a toddler or a baby? Wikipedia says that toddlerhood starts at 12 months and ends when a kid turns three. Some people say toddlerhood starts when your baby starts walking. If you ask toddlers themselves, they’d say Boo Boo is still a baby, even if he is walking and bigger than they are.

“Baby!” They say, as they point to him with the same excitement he points at cats and dogs. I tend to agree. He will always be my baby. But he is my baby that is starting to exhibit some very toddleresque behaviors!!

I remember going to my friend’s daughter’s second birthday party at her apartment, back when Boo Boo was still a baby. He was not even crawling yet, but the place was swarming with toddlers. When you hang out with toddlers you’re reminded that we, too, are animals. Screeching, howling, fist-slamming apes with an expansive vocabulary and an inspiring and dangerous imagination. 

When I needed to nurse I went into my friend’s kid’s room, away from the party. I have no inhibitions about nursing in public, but I had no idea how the toddlers would react to it. Boo Boo and I enjoyed our privacy for about ten seconds. The toddlers, who were intent on seeking out the token baby at the party, infiltrated the room. I had underestimated their door-opening skills. There were at least five of them. I was sitting on an armchair and they silently crowded around us in a semi-circle. One of them raised a chunky arm and pointed. It reminded me of that moment in Game of Thrones, Season 6 episode 10, where the Little Birds silently gather around Maester Pycelle, right before they stab him to death.

They wanted to know what the heck was going on.

Boo Boo stopped nursing every now and then to acknowledge the toddlers, but he did not let their presence distract him from his ambrosia. As a baby, he still did most of his thinking with his stomach.

I don’t know what happened during our ten minute absence from the party, but when we returned it looked like a die-in in Munchkinland, a die-in protesting the outsourcing of the Lollipop Guild’s production plant to Mexico. Maybe it had to with not getting that second piece of cake, or the cake was the wrong color, or someone pushed the toy car the wrong way, or someone was not allowed to have a tenth meatball.

Tiny bodies were strewn about the floor, some screeching, some silent. Some parents were trying to negotiate with their progeny, others were ignoring them, others were trying to prise them off the floor. But a protesting toddler is nearly impossible to pick up. I don’t know where they come up with this stuff. They do it universally. The technique is not passed on,  like oral tradition, from toddler to toddler. It is innate, and I can’t for the life of me figure out why we’d have such behavior built into us. It could get you killed!

Since Boo Boo realized at some point, probably around the time he started crawling, the entity that most often separates him from a desired object, like an electrical outlet, or gum on the sidewalk, or a discarded spoon at the playground, is his parents’ interloping hands, he’s specialized in the Banana Technique, where he bends backwards and stiffens his body, making it extremely difficult to hold on to him. It does not make evolutionary sense that his body would have a mechanism for escaping the grown-up grip, but not a mechanism for which to land on his feet.

Now that his is a toddleresque baby that walks around, most of these situations happen on the floor, and he immediately throws himself backwards. Luckily I can anticipate these episodes and hover behind him so that he plunges into my arms and not into the air, and then his whole body turns to spaghetti and slides to the floor. Except once he reaches the floor he realizes that he’d rather be standing, but in his rage he has forgotten how to get up. He goes into full heavy metal mode and starts thrashing his head like a battering ram so I have to cradle it and bring it gently to the floor,  where once it makes contact, his rage is turned off and he lies there, blinking, wondering what happened.

Our pediatrician, and my intuition, tells me that the best thing to do is just ignore a toddler that is in civil-disobedience mode. There isn’t much you can say to someone who is screaming like they’re auditioning for a heavy metal band, and there’s not much you can do to someone who is doing their best to imitate a piece of spaghetti. Sometimes we’ll divert his attention to something else we know he likes, but again, if he’s screaming blindly he won’t see or hear us.

But Boo Boo recently took his nonviolent civil disobedience training to the streets. He was tired. We had been out all afternoon, and had expected him to fall asleep for his second nap in his stroller…like when he was a baby.

But he did not. Nor was he happy about being in his stroller. When we got home Jer-bear and I decided to take a stroll around the block. We weren’t up there for very long, but it was enough time for Boo Boo to grab a Duplo brick. He was very happy with himself for having captured the brick and taking it away right away would cause aural distress. Even though he might not understand what I’m saying, I’ve tried to get into the habit of explaining to him ahead of time when I’m going to take things away from him and why. I’ve learned over the years that kids are rational, and as long as you have a good explanation for your expectations and a timeline they will respond reasonably.

“I know you really like your block, and I’m going to let you hold it until we get downstairs and then I’m going to take it away because I don’t want you to lose it!” I explained to Boo Boo before we left the apartment. He stared at me and blinked.

“Eh!” he said, and pointed out the window.

We got down the stairs and I put Boo Boo on the sidewalk. He always looks so little and vulnerable on the sidewalk but Boo Boo does not feel that way. Now that he’s started walking he feels ten feet tall. He started charging down the block. I caught up to him in a couple steps; his eagerness bigger than his gait. I crouched in front of him and tried to make eye contact with him before he noticed the cat on the neighbor’s steps.

“Okay! We’re down the stairs now, so I’m going to have to take the block!” And then I took it. And then he crumpled onto the sidewalk. At first he did not make a sound. I waited for the sound. The longer it takes for them to make a noise, the worse it’s always going to be. What we finally heard sounded more like the battle cry of the Army of the Dead than our sweet one-year-old. The cat ran away. 

I looked around, hoping there were not too many passers-by observing my failure as a mother. I know, I know, a mom’s biggest judge is herself and I’m no exception. The bigger the scream, the more of a failure I was. The longer my child lay prone on the sidewalk, the more of a failure I was. Never mind that Jer-bear was there, too. This would be my failure only.  

I stood there, wondering if I was really going to just let my child wail on the sidewalk. I certainly didn’t give him the block back. What would that teach him? And if I picked him up would he expect to be rewarded with attention every time he throws a fit? But also, if I leave him there will he damage his head on the hard cement? And whatever I do today will he even remember tomorrow? 

Jer-bear didn’t wait to see what would happen. He picked Boo Boo up. Boo Boo stopped crying. Which was good, but did we win the battle to lose the war? I don’t know! And I guess half of being a parent is being in a state of confusion. It’s enough to cause a temper tantrum.