We have lost control

I am not sure how it happened. They are wild. Have I lost my edge? I have to remind myself a lot that I am the adult, that I make the rules, that I have the decision power. So how has it happened? I am not all that sure. But I am guessing that it started slowly.

In the beginning there was Oldest and blankie and lamby. Then Middle was born and he received a cute blanket. I had to make one for Oldest, now there were three; purple blankie, regular blankie and lamby. I don’t know when “little” lamby came on the scene, but alas now there were four. Regular blankie, regular lamby, purple blankie and little lamby. So now we have not a security blanket but a support group. Fine, we can deal and I can take inventory. Middle only has ONE blankie, thank you GOD!

To get Oldest in for her nap I bribed her, “you can have TWO crackers”, “OH KAY”. For two and a half hours there was peace and at the time I was working from home, it worked like a charm. In hindsight it started a trend that I didn’t see coming. If I do say so myself, I do a supreme job at foreseeing the consequences of my actions as their mother. This I didn’t see. But instead I kept throwing big juicy steaks at it like the hungry monster that it was.

Then Middle, being the middle started noticing that Oldest was getting stuff. So then came the classic Toddler stall tactics. “I want, I’m cold, I’m hot, I’m this, I’m that…” They each get “super fresh” juice to take with them to bed.

About 3 months ago Middle successfully climbed out of his crib. The time has come for a big boy bed. So in the interim we have taken the side and the castors off of his crib. But here is the issue, Middle is W I L D and he adores his older sister. Middle is probably no wilder than your male toddler, but my first toddler was a girl. She didn’t climb out of her crib, ever. Oldest loves to tell Middle to do things, all from the prone position. She never gets out of her bed, she doesn’t have to, Middle is the gopher. “Go get pillows from Mommy’s bed. We can make a fort”. We unscrewed the light bulb in their overhead light because Middle would wake up and flick on the light. Nice.

Last night was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Middle had a complete melt down over his tooth brush. It started like this; “Green or Cars”? “Both”. Then quickly spiraled downward from there.

Suffice it to say we had a family meeting this morning of which they heard this “Blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah? BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH!”

There is a line from the movie Cars that we have adopted in our home. At the end of the movie, a bunch of Ferrari’s come to Guido’s shop for new tires. Guido says “Punch me in the face these are real Ferrari’s”. At our house we say “Punch me in the face”.