Return to Basics

Of sorts anyway.  The move is in full swing and while there is always something going on with that until it's over...I mean really...who wants to hear about how I back a box or throw out the Build a Bear box behind Connor's back?  Seriously, I just bored myself typing that.

So a new topic today.  One I know.  Children.  I won't say I understand them, but I have them.  I listen to them talk and I can repeat what they say.  Well, some of it anyway.

Today's topic:  Siblings Need to Fight


Let me just start off by saying this, these kids are insane.  Not your normal average kid who test boundaries and try to define themselves in the workings of a family.  No, I firmly believe that my kids are special and suffer from an unique brand of lunacy.  That has to explain it.  Really it does.  These kids are nuts.  This is not my fault and my role as a mother is not to lovingly nurture them but to survive and keep the house standing...and laundry apparently one of my covenants is to laundry.  Hmmm, that might be tomorrow's topic.  But I digress.

Fighting.  I remember fighting with my brother as a child but in all honesty, he was an idiot and deserved everything he got.  Note to Fate - "No, I am STILL not sorry for taking the wooden train over his forehead.  Maybe that's why you keep coming at me with a 2x4 but I don't care.  You've met him.  You know he earned it"  So when we decided to have kids I really wasn't shocked at the idea that brothers and sisters fight.  What I was not prepared for was WHAT they will fight about.  I grew up fighting about important matters, burning issues that ensured my role in the family and ownership over my own belongings.  I was staking claim and protecting territory.  Noble things, quest-like honor involved here.

My kids?  Tessi and Connor fought the other day about which box they would put their Polly Pocket toys away in.  The two boxes are.exactly.the.same. They have fought over who gets to name their baby doll Baby Zoe - after a friend of theirs.  Teddy and Connor have fought over whether or not Shun is all-powerful in Bakugan.  Teddy and Tessi have fought over who can tell Connor she can't watch a show.  Connor fought with be about loving the Shrek movies but had to be told to sit and watch them.  Then she argued that even if she didn't like them she still loved Shrek 4 and it is her favorite movie of all time...and she hasn't seen it.  Tessi then cried that she didn't want to go see Shrek and when I said fine, she didn't have go, that I would take the other two during school holidays she threw herself on the ground sobbing hysterically that I didn't love her and that she had to go.

I take Panadol and/or Nurofen (Tylenol and Advil) almost every day in case you were wondering.

Tessi has screamed at Connor for selecting the wrong spoon from the drawer.  Yesterday Teddy yelled at Tessi for letting Connor tell her how to color in her princess homework book.  Both Tessi and Connor have bellowed indignantly for applause and thanks for helping to create meals - meaning they stirred the pot on the stove - and then cry that the food was too yucky to eat.  And last night, Tessi argued with me about whether or not she argues or not.  The good part about that was it got the Monty Python argument clinic sketch stuck in my mind and that distracted me from climbing over my seat in the car to get at her to wring her neck.


There's no way this is normal.  I don't believe it.