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Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Siblingitis

Due to the amount of recent stress around here, I have been finding my kids particularly funny; when I don't want to send them to their rooms for a ten year time out that is. Recently just a touch more of siblingitis has come into play.

I went to this parenting workshop a few months ago and the facilitator talked about doing "Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down" as a good way to get your kids to discuss their day and also provide a safe environment to talk about what didn't go well. Seeing pretty much every preschool conversation with my older son (OS) involved a once sentence description for the snack followed by "That's enough for now, Mommy" I figured I didn't have anything to loose.

I started out first by holding my thumb up and saying what had went well. I made the Big Giraffe go next after quickly hissing that playing Thumbs Up Thumbs Down could not be counted as his thumbs down. Quickly the kids caught on and really enjoyed it. OS usually says about 2 or 3 things which may not sound like much but is a 100%-200% increase on what he usually says. Thumbs Down is also voluntary since hopefully not every day has something bad happen to it.

The other night we sat down for dinner and went around doing the game. Then we got to YS.

YS: Mumble mumble mumble mumble (followed by a big grin).
Me: Is your thumbs up that you made it through swim class without having to have me sit on deck?
YS: No! I'm excited that I get to eat OS's soccer birthday cake in September.

Do you know what happened next? Howls from OS who declared that first of all his soccer cake decision* was his thumbs up and YS stole it from him; he just hadn't had a chance to say it. Second, his cake was his cake and he didn't want to share it with YS. YS for his part just sat there smiling.



The boys just been sleeping well. Actually that's an understatement. Really I should say they haven't been sleeping at all. After listening to sobs all morning from both boys and trying not to sob myself, I suggested that OS sleep in the guest room tonight to try and get one good night of rest. OS loved this idea. That's when it all came out: He was truly the victim. Every night he stayed in bed and tried to go to sleep and his brother forced him to play puzzles and talk with him. It was really unfair. On and on it went. It did no good to point out the number of times I walked into the room last night to see him doing gymnastics leaps worthy of the Olympics off his bed while shrieking and laughing.

* Yes it is only July and OS has picked out his birthday cake for his birthday on Sept. 2nd. Really he picked it out months and months ago probably on September 3rd. YS also has his cake picked out for his birthday next June.

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posted by Alex Elliot @ 1:21 PM   3 comments
3 Comments:

  • At 7/23/2009 7:30 AM, Blogger Jen of A2eatwrite said…

    Think of it this way - you're more than halfway through the summer, right? Your boys are too funny!

     

  • At 8/04/2009 3:59 PM, Blogger skiplovey said…

    Yikes, sounds like the have a pretty severe case of the siblingitis.

    Love the thumbs up thumbs down game idea.

     

  • At 8/08/2009 8:59 AM, Blogger Manic Mommy said…

    Stealing his big brother's thumbs up sounds so like my Gremlin. And having HRH break out into a full fledged conniption? Dead on.

     
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Name:Alex Elliot
Home:MA, United States
About Me:Professional Mom of two cats, a dog, an ant farm, and oh yeah...two boys: a 6 year old and a 3 year old. Also found in my house is my husband who is known on this blog as The Big Giraffe.
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For those of us who didn't get an instruction manual with our babies and for whom parenting hasn't always gone as planned. On a more serious note this blog is about supporting a woman's ability to make her own choices about parenting including the choice, for whatever reason, to bottle feed her babies formula.

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