Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Green Eggs and Ham (or Something Like That)

Today was one of those days where I was looking forward to putting the kids in bed. Claire and Katie spent the majority of the late afternoon and early evening fighting. Then the baby spends every waking moment trying to eat whatever little bits of crap she finds on the floor. Monitoring the baby’s obsession in finding and consuming anything in her path has become very labor intensive. If you turn your back, then look again a minute later, she’s likely to be eating a waffle that has been under the stove for the last four years. Then followed by Play-Doh and fossilized scrambled eggs. I was a little tired of all of them by bedtime.

One of the problems with the fighting is that Claire falls for whatever Katie is saying. Katie will just to try to get a reaction. For example, right after being tucked into bed, Claire was talking about her ‘boyfriend’, the guy in 'High School Musical'.
Katie announced, “HE’S MY BOYFRIEND, TOO!”
Then Claire had to scream back, “HE'S NOT YOUR BOYFRIEND, KATIE!”

I took the opportunity to sit down on Claire’s bed and explain the old saying about ‘picking your battles’.
Me- “So, Claire, do you get it? You can’t fight about everything.”
Claire- “Yes I can.”

Then Katie wanted an equal amount of time with me talking to just her. I walked over to her bed and kneeled on the floor to talk to her. Katie still has some trouble staying dry all night and consequently, her bed doesn’t always smell the best. She uses Pull-Ups but the bed was still in need of some Fabreze tonight.

Katie- “Hey! Why aren’t you sitting on my bed like you did on Claire’s?!!”
Me- “Well, Katie, your bed’s a little stinky."
Katie- “You can still sit on it.”
Me- “No, I don’t think so. It’s stinky”
Katie- “Well, I’m laying in stink!”

4 comments:

Mia said...

such honesty.. gotta love it *grin*

J. said...

I agree with Claire, you CAN fight about everything, particularly if you're family! Maybe if you point out to Claire that she's just doing what Katie wants, then she might want to frustrate her little sister rather than fight with her.

Anonymous said...

Sounds like she ought to trade matresses with DH since stink is no longer a stranger to him. Man, pee or FeBreeze, it's a toss up. I like Ozzium.

Heidi said...

Ok, I realize I totally overlooked the point of your story, but the waffles made me laugh. This morning my son got the waffles out of the trash, and the bad thing is...I let him eat them. You can't win them all.