One

Happy Friday everyone!

It's a good thing we are having virtual coffee because I am sick. yuck. The boys have been sick since last weekend and I got it Monday. The only one left unscathed so far is the Hubby, though he mentioned today he thought he might have a sore throat. We shall see where this leads.

Anyway, we are freezing here in Texas. I am not a cold weather kind of girl. I do not function well in temperatures below about 60 degrees. So I have been sick and oh so cold and I am not happy about it.

Aren't you glad you stopped by? ;-)

So Kiddo (5 yrs) and I are butting heads. He is completely and totally into the new video games he got for Christmas. I have always been pretty lax about how much he plays - usually after a few days of playing non stop he will get tired of it and put it down for a week or so. Then he'll fall into a regular pattern of only playing every other day or so.

This time he wants to play non stop; which I understand when there are cool new games to play. The problem is that now, little Port wants to play sometimes too (he sits next to Kiddo with an unplugged controller and watches the action) and the only thing Port wants to play (or watch) is Cars.

He's a bit Cars obsessed right now.

And, unfortunately, when Port has his little heart set on something, if he doesn't get his way he pitches a rip-roarin' fit.

And poor Mommy's head really hurts. So we just can't have that.

Soooo, the long and short of it is that the xbox causes a bunch of controversy in our house right now. And when Port starts getting upset about the selection, I just opt to turn the whole thing off.

Which, of course, makes me the meanest mommy in the world to Kiddo.

And Kiddo has started whining to us (Hubby and I) whenever we make him stop playing that we are "taking away something that he loves". (say that in your head with a pitiful, whiny voice about 10,000 times and tell me you are not going insane!)

And another downside to my already dramatic son playing a bunch of video games is sometimes he gets stuck in that fantasy world. He doesn't always separate fantasy from reality well anyway, and right now it is particularly bad.

So today I made him turn the game off when it was time for breakfast which upset him as usual, and then after breakfast I wouldn't let him turn it back on. I told him we needed to turn off the tv for a while and play with some of the other toys. Kiddo gave me attitude about it so I sent him to his room. As usual, Port followed him in there and within a few minutes they were playing together. Several minutes later I hear Kiddo scream at Port, Port whined and Kiddo started yelling at him some more. I went in to see what was going on and Kiddo proceeded to tell me that the baby was robbing him and trying to steal his stuff.

I had just about had enough. This has been going on for days. And the kicker was that the baby wasn't even anywhere near him!

I put him in time out and told him that he needed to stop living in his fantasy world and that this was his real life. And in real life he is to treat his brother kindly and respectfully and that yelling at him like he did was never acceptable. I talked to him about it a bit more, reminding him that his real life included me and Hubby and Port and that we were a family and we needed to be nice to each other. And I told him that he had a good life and that we worked hard to make sure he had a nice home and toys to play with and lots of things to do....

After a long silence Kiddo turned to me and said,

"My life is TERRIBLE! And you took away the one thing that I looooove!!! It was the only thing that made me happy!" (i.e. the video games)

{well give the boy an Oscar!}

"The video games are the one thing that you love?" I asked.
"Yes!" he said.
"And nothing else that you have makes you happy?"
"No, and you took them away and now I have NOTHING!" he replied.

I looked around his overflowing room and the stacks of toys and books and clothes and junk.

And I told him that if he really felt that way, I would pack up all his toys and everything else in the room and send it all off to kids that would appreciate them. I stood up and walked out of his room to find some boxes.

He chased after me and promptly declared that he was only kidding.

*sigh*

The teen years are going to be TOUGH!

Hope your weekend is wonderful. Stay warm!

Until,
D :)