Days 8-10: Duplos & Discipline

As I mentioned in a previous blog, our family has been under the weather lately.  As a result of being sick with Hana, I have witnessed the difference between her toddler immunity and my almost thirty immunity.  I'm turning thirty this year and nothing comes as easily as it did just five years ago.  Let's put it this way, the process of losing ten pounds can be compared to the challenge of climbing the Matterhorn.  Similarly, when I come down with the respiratory flu, it takes a tone of sleep, around the clock doses of cough medicine, and eventually antibiotics to bring me back to life.  

This respiratory flu took Hana down for about three days, while it's taking me almost a week.  She just can't understand why mommy is lying on the couch all day, dropping in and out of consciousness, while she's running around.  She keeps asking me to take her outside or to chase her around the house.  It's been pretty hard on her since I'm her primary playmate during the day.  Within the last couple of days, I have watched her confusion and frustration turn into disobedience and tantrums.  

When talking above a whisper sends me into an exhausting coughing spell, the last thing I want to do is discipline Hana while she is kicking and screaming.  Honestly, my first inclination is to spank her and put her down for a nap ... but that does nothing except make her feel alienated from me.  Discipline is so important, but I feel that sometimes swift discipline fails to address real issues.  

Obviously she is too young to "talk it out", so sometimes I have to tune in to her queues in order to read the context of the issue.  In the case of today, she wanted to run and play with me, but I wasn't feeling up to it.  She responded by screaming and throwing all of her Duplo blocks across the floor in a fit of rage, and she made sure to catch a glimpse in my direction when she was done.  The first thing that came to my mind was, "Spank her."  However, within a split second, I knew that wasn't the solution in this situation.  I sat down next to her and said, "Hana, what a mess.  We don't throw blocks.  Let's clean up."  As I picked up the blocks with her, I could see her frustration dissolve into relief and peacefulness.