The Urge to go Mama Bear

As a first time mom, every milestone in my son's life is new to me. You hear the stories of the terrible twos and hope you're an exception. However, sometimes you're not so lucky. My son Jake will be two in April, and recently he started hitting and biting. Luckily for others, it's mostly directed at me, although he is starting to get daring with his grandmothers when it comes to throwing inanimate objects at them. I always thought it would be so easy to nip in the butt, but as many parents know, it's not as easy as one thinks. I tried ignoring, I tried time outs, nothing seems to work. Although I believe my latest attempt at holding his wrists and firmly telling him not to hit or bite is starting to slightly lessen the frequency of the "attacks."

Fast forward to yesterday. I'm with Jake at The Little Gym, and right off the bat this kid Charlie, who is probably a month or two older than my son, runs up to him and slaps Jake in the chest. Jake just stands there with a sad look on his face with his lower lip quivering. Charlie runs up to his nanny crying because he hurt his hand. As bad as it sounds, I was happy to see the kid crying after putting his hands on my son. Later on he hit Jake again and moved on to do something else after his nanny scolded him not to hit.

At the end of the class, Charlie walked up to Jake and lifted up his shirt to look at Jake's belly. Weird, but hey, kids are weird. After class the two were playing with Legos next to each other completely fine. I kept my mouth shut while this little boy put his hands on my son, since his nanny did the scolding, but it was difficult. I had to keep reminding myself he was the same age as Jake, and was doing the same thing that Jake does to me, except without teeth. Does anyone else find themselves hypocritical when it comes to raising kids? I'm not usually like that, I don't get hostile about kids who throw tantrums in the dairy aisle at the grocery store or anything. But when it comes down to something personal like a child hitting yours, is your first instinct to go mama bear on them? The only thing I can hope for is that this does not happen again, and maybe Jake will learn it's not nice to hit. Then again the terrible twos are probably going to last awhile. Especially with someone who is three months shy of turning two.