I Spanked My Child

I spanked Nathan a few days ago. It wasn't a spanking but it was a swat on the butt. Nathan is easy going. He's a bit quiet and shy, and he loves to help Mom, Dad, and Grandma. This is the second marriage for me and my husband so the mixed family makes Nathan the youngest of eight. His brothers and sisters are all adults now so he is effectively being raised as an only child. I have raised a lot of kids and he is the most easy going of the bunch.

My granddaughter, Jayden, is an only child, too. When the two of them are together, all of that pent up energy comes flooding out and I swear the walls of Jericho are coming down. Cushions are off the couch, toys aren't played with, they are dumped and thrown. Every word out of their mouths comes out with a high pitch scream. They are excited and having fun. I'm exhausted.

I had picked Jayden up from preschool and was keeping her for the night. I wanted to go to Whole Foods and debated it. Trying to manage the two of them in a store is not easy. I decided to make the plunge. We got in the parking lot and I talked to both of them. This is a store and we need to not scream and run and touch things.

They were on a dead run when we got in. I'm trying to get what I went for and keep up with them. Nathan was grabbing the side of my cart and tipping it over. He was crawling and rolling on the floor. They were screaming and having a great time. I put them next to the cart and told them to stand still. Don't move. I was looking up at a shelf and I hear glass hitting glass. Nathan was amusing himself by rubbing his hands along glass bottles, listening to them clank against each other.

I swatted him on the butt. I didn't even know I was going to do it. It was done before I even thought. Both of those little faces are looking up at me with this look like, "you did NOT just do that". I wanted to laugh so I turned around and started to push the cart. Then - SWAT! The little bugger whacked ME on the butt. I turned around and I'm sure I had the same look that they had when I did it. He had an "uh, oh" look on his face. Here we are. I just hit my child. My child just hit me back. I don't know what you are supposed to do when that happens but it was FUNNY. All three of us started laughing. So I failed in the discipline but it was funny.