Inadvertant Teachings

As a new mother, I desire to teach my children all sorts of things. I want to teach them important things, like walking, rolling over, about Jesus, good morals, respect, etc. I also want to teach my boys about silly things, like blowing kisses, tickling, and just plain having fun. Well, some things I have taught them have been interpreted differently by them. Here are some examples:

When trying to teach them how to blow kisses, I would take my hand to my mouth, kiss my hand, and dramatically fling my hand out. Then I realized they didn't know what I was doing with my hand, so I took their hands, kissed it, and flung their hands out (while holding them- please don't picture me flinging my babies!). I did that over and over again so that they would copy it. Their interpretation: they started smacking me and each other in the mouth and laughing. Oops.

Paul would often play bite them, saying he was going to eat his babies, and then playfully chomp down on their bellies, legs, backs, or where ever would get the biggest laugh. The result: we can't seem to get them to stop biting. And the biting isn't malicious- they laugh as though they are playing Daddy's game. Another oops!

Recently, and I am not sure how this started, but Matthew has begun kicking and flailing his legs while on the changing table. Not every time, but enough that he is uncontrollable. I don't know if Paul taught him this or if he just encouraged it, but Paul told me all excited that he was doing it first with him. Oh, and Matthew isn't throwing fits- he is laughing hysterically, which is really funny, but I do not laugh at him because I don't want to encourage him. Tonight, he did it after I had one boot on, and he kicked me all over my arms, and I could not get him to calm down. I had half the other boot on, and I tried connecting them with the bar to see if he would calm down, but to no avail, so I had to wait it out.

I am sure there are other examples, but those are the three that come to mind. Sometimes things don't always work out as planned and they learn things you wouldn't think they would learn from what you are trying to teach them. It is especially frustrating when you are trying to intentionally teach them something and instead, they learn something bad from it, IE: the hitting and biting, and the kicking isn't too great either. I just wish I knew how to make them unlearn those behaviors!