I picked that one up from the Supernanny, who says “get down to their level, and speak in a low tone….” She says it in a plummy British accent and it sounds so perfectly reasonable, but when I try it on the baby, she laughs at me. I mean, I grasp the irony here. I’m watching this show to pick up pointers, because, god forbid, I end up raising one of the hell spawn they have on that show, but I can’t control my child well enough to get through an episode. And she’s one! What’s going to happen in a few years? So I think maybe I’ve already screwed up and I’m doomed to be on the show, with her at four calling me a “giant poopy butt” and biting me when I try to give her a kiss.
That’s my nightmare, that I become one of those moms on the show who asks her child permission to do everything and has to drag her kid through the supermarket by her ankle because she's throwing a massive arms-flailing, legs pumping temper tantrum on the floor of the Stop and Shop.
But the low tone doesn’t work, so the two of us are locked in a standoff. It’s like High Noon, only Gary Cooper’s two feet tall and wearing footy pajamas. And I’m trying to channel Jo Frost, my beloved Supernanny, by telling the baby that her behavior is unacceptable and threatening to place her on the naughty spot. I mean, I’m really working it; I even add in the British accent and mispronounce it like Jo does: “Your behavior is totally ‘unasseptable,’ young lady!” (Strange, this pronunciation. You’d think the producers would pull her aside or something. She says it like ten times on every show. )
But back here on the rug in front of the TV, I take her little finger and press the on button. Supernanny springs back into action, helping the TV mom whip two sets of twins into shape. My baby looks from the screen to my tense face and begins to laugh, her finger pointed at the off button like a six-shooter.
Great. I’ve been a mom for eleven point five months and I’ve raised Dillinger with an itchy trigger finger. Just think what havoc I can wreak in a decade.
