Not So Innocent

As Carter draws closer and closer to a year old, it seems that his little innocent baby self is fading. Don't get me wrong. He is still my adorable baby boy, but we are really starting to see his disobedient side. 

We have already seen it before. Crawling back to something he was told to not touch for the 5th time and getting angry when told "no". Then there was the other day in the park. Scott was at work and it was a beautiful day so I thought I would take Carter on a walk to the park for a little while and play. We have done this many times before and we play on the swings and slide and then go and sit in the grass. He is usually really good about staying on the grass, and I had brought a blanket and toys, but this day his curiosity was running high and he really wanted to go explore the concrete. I would usually let him do this, but he didn't have shoes on  and I was actually so exhausted that I didn't want to have to chase after him constantly. (I know, such a lame excuse, but the truth). I kept telling him 'no' and moving him back over to the grass where our stuff was. Of course he wasn't listening and would go right back. This went on multiple times with Carter getting very frustrated. Now, I know some of you might be thinking, "Why didn't you just let him go?". Well, I thought about that and I easily could have, but then that ruins all consistency and teaches Carter that if he keeps doing it I will finally give in. No sir, I will not do that. I have to make my yes, yes and my no, no. 

After he went back again for probably the 15th time, I finally got in his face and said, "no". Well, he took that little hand of his and smacked me right on the face. I was shocked and grabbed that little hand, gave it a swat and said "no, you may not hit me!". He then takes his other hand and yanks on my hair. I of course was upset with him, but then for some reason, I just started laughing, which he saw, so he of course started laughing with me. I know, I deserve a trophy for good parenting skills. Basically everything I had done up to that point was thrown in the garbage. 

I think my laughter came about from see this type of behavior out of him for the first time. I was upset with him, but then there was something that was almost cute about it. There will be other things that seem to be 'cute' as well, but from here on out, if we feel like we have to laugh we need to quickly turn our head away so he can not see our face. It might be cute now, but it won't be down the road and if we don't nip it in the bud now, it will be a disaster later. After all, a baby does have a sinful nature and they really aren't as innocent as one would like to think.