Spanking

She bit Lisa on her cheek, leaving little milk teeth marks on the girl’s cute chubby cheek and me with a face so red, I really had nowhere to look and literally nothing to say. Obviously I apologised and looked at Lisa’s cheek, all the while running over what I should say to Lela. How do I begin to address this, it happen a couple of hours before, so it’s not recent. I am of the belief that one should punish a child immediately after the transgression has been made. This little incident challenged me as many incidents have since she turned two. What do I make of it, I thought I knew what was up, I was a confident mom until now, but she is changing and so must I.

Lisa’s mom and my dear friend said it was fine and that I should not worry but I was worried. I asked Lela what she did to Lisa’s cheek, she said no! I love you mommy, I guess she thinks that saying I love you will make everything ok, but it does not. Lisa’s cheek was bruising badly.

When I was 5 I had a best friend, I met her at crèche when I was 4, and her name was Nadia Salie. One day during break I gave her a love bite, I can’t now remember where I heard about love bites but we knew enough to know how to administer it. I took hold of her face and sucked – almost at the exact spot where Lela bit Lisa. She did the same for me, but I was a lot darker in skin tone than she was and yep her love bite was a deep purple whilst mine was a sort of blue green. All our friends told us to put tooth paste on it and this we did – drawing more attention to it than anything else. Our grandparents did not make a big deal of it – but a hickey is different from a bite.

I asked everyone to leave the room, I saw the fear and shame rising in Lela’s eyes. I sat opposite her and told her that to bite someone is not good, its fighting, I asked her if she would like me to bite her, she responded, I was furious but dealt with it. I said I will have to spank you now because you have been naughty, biting Lisa on the cheek was naughty. I asked her to stand up and turn around, I gave her two sharp smacks on the upper thigh, she cried and when the worst part was over i asked if she said sorry to Lisa, we then went to find Lisa and apologised, i took her to apologise to Lisa’s mom and then she apologised to me, she had to do the same to her dad and Lisa’s dad. All of us (the grownups) appreciated that this was difficult for Lela and that for her to understand that her behaviour was unacceptable was the most important thing. Her behaviour had consequences.

Its real crap to spank a child that says she loves you!

I sure hope that she got the message but I have a feeling that this lesson will have to be repeated, each one with the same intensity…

I know she is just two but if I don’t take the time to get the basics right it might prove to be an even bigger challenge in years to come. I still can’t believe she is mine; everything I had was taken from me at some point. She is still here and for that I thank my angels. I know we all feel a certain way about our kids and I appreciate that all mom’s say this and I think its our job to say and think this.

Lela is special, smart, sensitive and this weekend I learnt that she is not perfect. My tall big eyed girl.

I sure wish you could meet her.