In the special features on the DVD (I think it’s in the commentary) they make the seagulls do the line in all the languages the DVD comes in. It IS “MINE” according to the people who made the movie. Plus, it makes sense - they say it when they see food (the crabs, Marlin and Dory, etc). They’re seagulls, they want the food all for themselves and won’t share with the other ones.
As for the OP, I’m actually afraid to have kids because of stuff like this (not THAT afraid, I’ll still have them at some point, but still…). I can deal with a bratty kid - some kids are bratty, especially when they’re young and haven’t learned better. However, I don’t think I can deal with a bratty ADULT without my head exploding.
He disrupted the beginning of the ceremony - he went up the aisle, and made my brother (a groomsman), the best man, and my husband chase him around the pillars on the portico while the girls were coming up the aisle. He laid flat on the ground and held himself tight so no one could pick him up. He finally had to be grabbed by my cousin and removed from the ceremony - so he wasn’t there for most of the ceremony. Thank God we didn’t give him the real rings. Every picture we have of him practically is of him misbehaving - someone trying to get him to straighten up, get off the ground, stop rolling around, whatever. My poor flower girl practically dragged him up the aisle because he was being such a shit and wouldn’t walk properly.
During pictures, he stuck his tongue out at the camera. He rolled around in the grass IN HIS TUX. He refused to listen to anyone, including his parents and his grandfather (who was our officiant). And my cousin caught him hanging around the cake table a couple of times, with his hand extended, about to scoop some frosting off of our groom’s cake (before we’d cut the cakes).
It may not sound like much, but it was continuous - and my husband’s family still asks about him. And part of it was that at the rehearsal dinner the night before, we had karaoke - he got the microphone and stuck it as far into his mouth as it could go, screamed into it, and then tried to hit anyone who tried to take it away. So I wasn’t exactly pleased with him to begin with.
My mother says that his parents have been trying to discipline him more, but I’ll believe it when I see it. He’s the first great-grandchild on that side of the family, so he’s been raised to believe that he’s the Messiah. And now, everyone’s paying the price for that.
(Sorry to hijack, Helen - this is one of those subjects that gets my ire up - bratty kids and brattier parents).
And Case, I find bad jokes funny:). It’s one of those charming aspects of me . The worse the joke is, the funnier I find it!
No hijack. I think it is just another example. I also see some parents not doing anything when there children are very small, then all of a sudden, at age 5 or 6 try to rein their kids in. Not pretty.
Yep - he’s not the first child I’ve seen to have that happen. But there ARE parents out there doing a great job - my close college friend has the most adorable and well behaved two year old boy in the world - he is the sweetest little guy (he was at our wedding, too, and we have shots of him dancing in the background during the parents’ dance - way too cute). His parents are good with him - you can tell that he’s their world (along with their newborn daughter), but they make sure he knows the rules and that he follows them. And he’s a great kid for it. (We got compliments on him and my parents’ neighbors’ three kids - their oldest was the flower girl - may be why my cousin’s son stood out so much - there were four other perfectly behaved children there, so he was the only one acting like Satan’s demonspawn.)
It seems to me like a lot of parents now subscribe to the “Well, when they get into school, they can learn rules and discipline, not now” theory. And then we get to the point where we see a 5 year old in handcuffs (I know that’s a big leap, and it’s not a good example of cause and effect, but it’s a small example of this).
Shoot, if anything has me wanting to be a good parent and have well-behaved kids, it’s seeing my cousin’s kid.
Clearly, he didn’t. But I’m not so sure that’s the fault of the parents.
You dressed up a four year old and tried to make him follow a rigid process in order to use him as a prop in your ceremony. Four year olds are not flowers, cakes or invitations, they don’t do what they’re told all the time. Especially if what they’re told is as inexplicable as ‘walk up this aisle carrying this pillow, then stand there for twenty minutes still and quiet while other people do things you don’t even understand, then walk out again’. How did you expect him to react?
Funny, I’ve seen at least 10 weddings where the child/ren did exactly that. Of course, some of the more sensible stage managers told the child to walk down the isle and then go sit with Grandma, but most managed that fine too. Most children can understand special occasion behavior and sit or stand quietly. Most children can at least hold still and look pleasant for the camera.
There’s a difference between acting your age and throwing a tantrum. I had two 4 year olds in my wedding, one of them was also slightly learning disabled and they were both fine, and excited about it. Sure, one of them needed a bit of prodding to take the pictures and Mom had to stand by in case things went awry, but there were no tantrums and nobody needed to be taken away because they had to run around everywhere.
They’re not 2 anymore, they can understand human speech and follow directions, if they feel like it. You expect them to act like little kids, but generally that’s fun, not horrible.
Actually, no. We expected him to act human. He was in my brother’s wedding the year prior, so it’s not like he hadn’t done this before. He wasn’t expected to stand there - in fact, he WANTED to stand with his Opa, who was performing the ceremony - his mother made the mistake of taking him out of the ceremony last year because she didn’t want him to disrupt it, and he raised holy hell because he KNEW what he was supposed to do. We asked him if he wanted to stay up with Opa at our ceremony or if he wanted to go sit with his mom and dad, and he said no, he was supposed to be with Opa and he was the ring bearer, so he was supposed to stand with A. and G. (my brother and husband) quietly and hold the rings while G. and I got married. He was excited about being in the wedding, and we had three family members on standby to take him out to play in case he got bored.
If it had just been the ceremony, fine - but he was a little terror for the entire four days. He threw tantrums, he purposely did the OPPOSITE of what he was told, and he was plainly put, a brat. Funny, the other kids who were visiting for those four days, some younger than he was, were better behaved.
I couldn’t have cared less whether or not he stood still during the ceremony. What I did care about was that he refused to listen to anyone, and he acted like a monkey. It’s standard behavior for him elsewhere, and yes, I do blame his parents for it. He DOES know better, but no one enforces his behavior - if anything, they reinforce his bad behavior by letting him get away with everything. And that’s all the time, not just at our wedding. I was just exposed to it in detail at my wedding.
For the record, I had no idea about his behavior during the ceremony until I saw the pictures. I had brushed off his behavior during pictures and the reception as ‘being a four-year-old’, but apparently, MY family was horrified by his behavior and his grandfather punished him the next day for his behavior - we had nothing to do with that. His behavior wasn’t what most people would have found acceptable for a four year old in dinner at Bob Evans, much less a wedding.
I’ve watched two couples raise daughters over the years-Snookums 1 and Snookums 2.
The first adopted what I call The Path of Least Resistance parenting model.
If Snookums 1 didn’t want to go the bed at a certain hour fine-let her rampage through the house until she fell over from sheer exhaustion.
If Snookums 1 didn’t want to remain in her seat at the restaurant-well, that was a-ok too. Let her wander around annoying other patrons and the wait staff.
If Snookums 1 didn’t want to do chores-either up the ante by giving her a bribe or just do it for her.
Now Snookums 1 is 12, mouthy, spoiled and inconsiderate and can be quite unpleasant to be around unless she’s doing exactly what she wants to do.
The other couple began enforcing basic standards of behavior from the beginning.
If Snookums 2 threw a fit about her bedtime, she was carried to her bedroom and made to remain there.
If Snookums 2 got restless at the restaurant, she was told to remain seated.
If that didn’t work, the bill was paid and she was taken to the car.
If Snookums 2 refused to pick up her toys, a privilege was revoked or Snookums had a time- out until she complied.
Now Snookums 2 is 9 and normally a joy to be around.
Oh, she has her moments but then, what child or adult doesn’t?
I remember an incident that occurred when Snookums 2 was about 3.
She tossed her ball in the living room ( a big no no) and knocked over my glass.
Mom calmly removed her from the scene and explained that she needed to apologize to me.
Snookums 2 came back in, started fussing and was taken out of the room again.
This was repeated three times until Snookums 2 tearfully said “I’m sorry, Aunt Jlzania.”
Mind you, no spanking was administered but Snookums 2 couldn’t do anything else until she had acknowledged that she was wrong and made amends.
It doesn’t seem that complex to me to instill a sense of consequences in a child.
I’m sorry, I think that’s crazy. My two step-daughters, aged 2 and 4 were in my wedding when I married their father as flower girls. They were absolutely adorable and did exactly what they were told. My son, who is seven, was the ring bearer in my brother’s wedding in September. He was winking at his new aunt to keep her from being so emotional during the ceremony. Kids know how to behave in certain situations if they have any training at all. Did you miss the part where she said he tried to HIT anyone who tried to take a microphone away from him when he was screaming into it? That alone is ridiculous. There are limits to how much you can ask of children, yes. There are children involved in nearly every wedding I’ve ever seen and I’ve never heard of a child behaving in this manner. I feel quite confident the parents must share some of the blame in this scenario.
Helen, glad to see you posting again! I will be waiting with ivylass to hear the rest of your story. I’d been thinking about you the other day, hoping everything was going well.
No. He was actually pretty well-behaved. The only time he got upset wasn’t because of anything he did - it was his mom’s fault. He knew what his role was as the ringbearer - he had read one of the books about his job, and he was pretty good at telling us what he was supposed to do. He went up the aisle and was standing quietly next to his Opa when his mother decided that she needed to take him from the bridal party so that he didn’t act up. Wrong move - she took him away and he got (rightfully) upset because he KNEW what he was supposed to do, and he was supposed to stand by his Opa while A. and A. got married, and she was WRONG. So she took him away screaming and kicking. None of us blamed him for that, and his mother admitted she should have just left him there and he would have been fine.
Call me crazy, but I figure if a child knows how to behave at three years old, they’ll know how to behave at four years old. He knew that he was being terrible, and it wasn’t just at the ceremony - that was just the highlight of his bad behavior.
That’s not crazy, but I can’t see how the parents who raised a perfectly reasonable child until he was three years old could have turned it into a monster before it turned four. It just seems weird that he’d be so good at one wedding and then freak out at the next, and it doesn’t seem like bad parenting can be blamed entirely - because that doesn’t explain the first wedding.
Oh, no, he’s been pretty terrible for the past two and a half years - ever since the ‘terrible twos’ - I’ve got other stories - and I do think it’s because he’s been treated like Jesus Christ come back to life for most of his short life. But he was pretty decent at my brother’s wedding - credit where it’s due. This was not the first incident at our wedding, and it won’t be the last - but I think it did make his parents realize that he was lacking discipline.
My cousin was a biter; he once bit another cousin so severely on the shoulder, the other cousin needed over 20 stitches to close it back up. The biter is now a successful psychologist.
I applaud your self-control, Helen; I’d’ve had a hard time not decking that broad! Good to hear that the staff is aware of the situation and taking steps.
Since I spend a lot of time hanging out on parenting boards, I can testify for certain that there are a LOT of mothers agonizing over discipline. Particularly during those toddler/preschool years. Kids have an annoying way of laughing at mom’s “No!”.
My twins are going to be 18 months old at the big family reunion this summer. Ay yi yi, talk about the prime “brat” window! They haven’t thrown many fits yet, and none that were particularly impressive, but 18 mos is evidently when kids usually kick it up a big notch. OTOH, that family could use some excitement. No doubt they’ll all be "tsk tsk"ing us, but our branch of the family tree is scandalous anyway, we were the only ones who didn’t know the hymns by heart at the last gathering.
. The worse the joke is, the funnier I find it!