Sounds so much better in French I think. Although my children wouldn't agree, despite me trying to teach them French, they really have to be "in the mood" or they just tell me to "stop speaking weirdly!" Anyway, the point of this is not to rant on about my children's lack of want to unlock other dialects, it's the compulsion they seem to have for all things "technologique" and or whingeing.
This very morning husband and I were woken up with undeniably hideous whingeing. I can't stand it. I know I do it, I have caught myself saying things to them like "please eat with your mouth shut, don't do that, use a knife and fork, sit in your seats, stop fighting, please just STOP WHINGEING" etc, in a tone that massively replicates, no matter who's listening, whingeing. But in this case it's very much a situation, for me anyway, of "do what I say, ABSOLUTELY don't do what I do."
I do understand it, it's usually very effective, problem is, it makes me want to boil the thing whingeing, including myself. In Short, it makes me feel quite violent. It's one of those things that just seems to materialise. If you're not really careful and totally in control, it slips out. For me it's exasperation, I no longer have the will to shout, but I really want to communicate strongly with my children, so whiiiiiiinge blah blah is what falls out.
My children on the other hand do it because it gets results, not always the right ones, but nevertheless in these situations they just want a/any result. All children do it, I know this to be true, I have seen all children I have met do it on almost every occasion and it sort of makes me smile. Smile in the knowledge that this is just something, rather than THE THING THAT MUST BE STAMPED OUT. Sometimes I can cope with it, and have the good grace to just laugh square in their face, usually a good option as the perpetrator usually laughs too. But sometimes, it's not a laughing time and it escalates, rather like Jihad. This morning par example.
Children came in and wanted electronic devices to stare at. The husband's phone (which he never readily gives up, he'd far rather have them whinge on, because he doesn't hear it in the same way I do. Fact, nature has programmed women to hear their babies/children's pleas louder than anything else, cruel!) Then when whingeing for that didn't work, eldest went for "Beebies". This didn't work, so when youngest came in they simultaneously whinged from one medium of electronic idiocy to the other.
When we took our first virginal steps into babydom, husband and I were smugger than smug. We'd sit in the pub (me not drinking, far too full of baby and guilt over drinking when pregnant, that and the fact it gave me outrageous heartburn) and talk to people with children and indeed without children about the fact that "No no, our children shan't watch television, they shan't play computer games 'til their eyes bulge out of their heads and are good for nothing but staring. NO, our children will categorically be like Saffi from Ab' Fab' and embrace the book, the art, the crafts, cooking and walking and sports. Yes, our children will be well rounded, resourceful and... weird!"
There was a time, when eldest was about 17 1/2 months, when I was whale-like with my 9lb 2oz smallest in the oven, that I would beach myself on the sofa and actively try and engage my daughter with the television. I would point and nod encouragingly at the idiot box and pray for her to become transfixed so I could escape the flood of heart burn and sleep/relax from carrying 80 stone me and baby around. This did not work at all. Eldest just wanted to build things and then knock them down, climb things, jump off things on to me, make play-doh mess and sand and water mess, this was the child we had pre-emptively extolled the virtues of, and I wanted to trounce that and just have her stare aimlessly and stupidly for half an hour.
The tables have turned now, and they sometimes love nothing more to stare at hideous inane excuses for film and television. When we're "busy", we tempt them into the sitting room with the promise of such noble pursuits as "Horseland" very much worth a precursory glance, that stuff has to be seen to be believed, and Diego, this one can fool oneself, is educational, but in truth it's just idiot box staring.
Our two are always after a phone or a television, or and i-pad or computer and they navigate them far more proficiently than I can, but it's short lived, in the main. Usually they would far rather whinge on endlessly at me about this, that or the other. I think it comes down to the fact that children, according to most parents I've met, should really be for Christmas, that way you can spoil them rotten, then just put them back in a cupboard til next year, with or without an electronic something. That'd be great, wouldn't it?
This very morning husband and I were woken up with undeniably hideous whingeing. I can't stand it. I know I do it, I have caught myself saying things to them like "please eat with your mouth shut, don't do that, use a knife and fork, sit in your seats, stop fighting, please just STOP WHINGEING" etc, in a tone that massively replicates, no matter who's listening, whingeing. But in this case it's very much a situation, for me anyway, of "do what I say, ABSOLUTELY don't do what I do."
I do understand it, it's usually very effective, problem is, it makes me want to boil the thing whingeing, including myself. In Short, it makes me feel quite violent. It's one of those things that just seems to materialise. If you're not really careful and totally in control, it slips out. For me it's exasperation, I no longer have the will to shout, but I really want to communicate strongly with my children, so whiiiiiiinge blah blah is what falls out.
My children on the other hand do it because it gets results, not always the right ones, but nevertheless in these situations they just want a/any result. All children do it, I know this to be true, I have seen all children I have met do it on almost every occasion and it sort of makes me smile. Smile in the knowledge that this is just something, rather than THE THING THAT MUST BE STAMPED OUT. Sometimes I can cope with it, and have the good grace to just laugh square in their face, usually a good option as the perpetrator usually laughs too. But sometimes, it's not a laughing time and it escalates, rather like Jihad. This morning par example.
Children came in and wanted electronic devices to stare at. The husband's phone (which he never readily gives up, he'd far rather have them whinge on, because he doesn't hear it in the same way I do. Fact, nature has programmed women to hear their babies/children's pleas louder than anything else, cruel!) Then when whingeing for that didn't work, eldest went for "Beebies". This didn't work, so when youngest came in they simultaneously whinged from one medium of electronic idiocy to the other.
When we took our first virginal steps into babydom, husband and I were smugger than smug. We'd sit in the pub (me not drinking, far too full of baby and guilt over drinking when pregnant, that and the fact it gave me outrageous heartburn) and talk to people with children and indeed without children about the fact that "No no, our children shan't watch television, they shan't play computer games 'til their eyes bulge out of their heads and are good for nothing but staring. NO, our children will categorically be like Saffi from Ab' Fab' and embrace the book, the art, the crafts, cooking and walking and sports. Yes, our children will be well rounded, resourceful and... weird!"
There was a time, when eldest was about 17 1/2 months, when I was whale-like with my 9lb 2oz smallest in the oven, that I would beach myself on the sofa and actively try and engage my daughter with the television. I would point and nod encouragingly at the idiot box and pray for her to become transfixed so I could escape the flood of heart burn and sleep/relax from carrying 80 stone me and baby around. This did not work at all. Eldest just wanted to build things and then knock them down, climb things, jump off things on to me, make play-doh mess and sand and water mess, this was the child we had pre-emptively extolled the virtues of, and I wanted to trounce that and just have her stare aimlessly and stupidly for half an hour.
The tables have turned now, and they sometimes love nothing more to stare at hideous inane excuses for film and television. When we're "busy", we tempt them into the sitting room with the promise of such noble pursuits as "Horseland" very much worth a precursory glance, that stuff has to be seen to be believed, and Diego, this one can fool oneself, is educational, but in truth it's just idiot box staring.
Our two are always after a phone or a television, or and i-pad or computer and they navigate them far more proficiently than I can, but it's short lived, in the main. Usually they would far rather whinge on endlessly at me about this, that or the other. I think it comes down to the fact that children, according to most parents I've met, should really be for Christmas, that way you can spoil them rotten, then just put them back in a cupboard til next year, with or without an electronic something. That'd be great, wouldn't it?
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