Public Disasters!

    This blog post has been brought about due to some rather unfortunate events that have taken place the last couple of days. On Friday my sister and I decided to take the babies to McDonald's to play in the play area since it was too cold to play outside. After about an hour and a half of playing and getting close to nap time, we decided to go. On our way out to the car Hudson decided to flip out because I wouldn't let him walk to the car. I let him down and told him he must hold my hand since we were walking across the drive through area. He hit my hand away and wouldn't hold my hand. I picked him back up and told him he couldn't walk since he wouldn't hold my hand. He then proceeded to lean his head back and ram it into my ear as hard as he could. I am pretty sure he bruised my cartilage because I couldn't even sleep on that side of my head that night. I was lying in pain thinking, why does he do this in public every time? At home, he would have gotten a spanking or time out. In public, I can't just put him in time out and I am so scared if I spank him in public that I am going to get turned in. I was just thinking "I guess I will just have to work through this. It will get better with age."
    THEN, Saturday night happened and I knew I couldn't just make it work. I have to figure out what to do when we are in public. We took Hudson to a Chinese restaurant after church and the first five minutes weren't so bad. He threw a small fit about getting in his high chair, but after he had some food, he didn't really seem to mind. Five minutes later, you would have thought we were killing him. He kept screaming "Sit!" and pointing to me. (Hudson doesn't pronounce his "s's" very well and all of his s's sound like sh. Put that together in your head and he was yelling something very loudly that was pretty embarrassing!) I took him out of his high chair and he kept screaming. I took him to the bathroom to spank him, but by the time I got there,  he had calmed down. I talked with him, he told me he was sorry, gave me a kiss and told me he would be better. He lied. As soon as we walked out, he was back to screaming. I was mortified so we just got to go boxes and high tailed it out of there.
    So here is my dilemma...He is too young to understand going to the bathroom to get a spanking. By the time we get there he has forgotten what we are going back there for. I know this because I tried a different time to go to the bathroom for discipline and the whole way back to the bathroom he was making silly faces at customers and laughing. I can't put him in time out in public. I really have no idea what to do in public when my son misbehaves. He is smart enough to know he is getting away with it. At home he doesn't act out like that very often, but when he does, he gets in trouble. So this is why I say I have reached a failure in my parenting. I have no idea what to do. I need help!

By the way, I used to be one of those people without kids that would look at children misbehaving in public and think "I will never have a kid like that. If they got in trouble for stuff like that at home, they wouldn't act that way in public. The parents must be doing something wrong! I will never do that!" And now I just laugh at my stupid, pre-kid self. So maybe this is God's way of showing me never to judge a situation I know nothing about. I am just eating crow...3 years later.