One of my favorite books ever is called “Diary of a Wombat” by Jackie French. It is a hilarious tale of a wombat who lives “with” a family who take care of it, although not entirely of their own free will. The punchline of the book is the wombat declaring in his/her diary that humans are easily trainable and make good pets. It appears that my cat Dancer read the book while I wasn’t around and decided to see if it were true. At least that is what I keep telling myself when he asserts himself in ways that get me to do what he wants me to do.
For example, on Friday when I was taking an old Mac laptop apart so that I could extract the hard drive (a total of maybe 5 minutes of work), he jumped up on the counter several times to get my attention. Each time I put him back down and then he would slink away and then jump right back up. He was so persistent that I switched tasks so I could actually get something done.
And when I sit on my kneeling chair to work at my computer, he has started jumping up on the desk next to me and nudging my arm until I pick him up. Then comes the catch 22. If I take a break and hold him for a few minutes, he will sometimes leave me alone for a while. But, if I toss him back on the floor (as I should so as to not positively reinforce the behavior), he just jumps back up and harasses me until I just give in and hold him to make him stop.
This conundrum raises two issues for me. The first is the one that concerns me most. I can sometimes be a softie when it comes to discipline. I believe (and the data backs me up on this) that children need structure and a clear sense of what behaviors are acceptable and what is not. Of course they will push boundaries, but it is up to the parents to maintain a clear line of demarkation (as much as such things exist in real life).
When it comes to behaviors that put Dancer in any danger, I am extremely consistent. He is never allowed on any counters. And when I find him on one, I usually just pick him up and put him back on the floor. But when he gets on the island where the stove is located, he not only gets tossed back on the floor, but I use my stern voice. I do this because while I hope he is smart enough to avoid fire, he may not know when one of the burners is hot. And I would strongly prefer that he not discover this the hard and painful way.
All of this is a long way of saying that I am not concerned that I will let my child put herself in any obvious danger. What I am concerned about is that for all other discipline issues I am so used to permissive “auntie” mode that it will take some retraining on my part to switch to parental mode. The good news is that I have a nice ramp-up period because newborns are so unformed that discipline isn’t even relevant. And hopefully by the time she is mobile and the boundary-setting responsibilities start my brain will have completed the transition.
The second issue is how Dancer (and to a lesser degree, Nom Nom) will deal with David and I shifting our attention almost exclusively to a baby. I know at the very least Dancer will feel mad and neglected and I suspect his existent bad behaviors will ramp up as he tries to draw our attention. And that is exactly why now is the time that I should be firmly establishing boundaries for him. And this is what I keep trying to tell myself when I bust him for jumping on a counter or drinking from one of our water glasses.
So really I shouldn’t be complaining that there is nothing for me to do while we are waiting to enter the adoption pool. Now is the perfect time for me to be working on my shift from auntie to parental mode. Let the battle of wills begin!