It's February. THAT IS COMPLETELY MESSED UP. Do you sometimes feel you are in a time warp and you have missed like a week or 2?
Anyway, usually I feel like that. Only sometimes when I am with my kids, I feel like time is standing still and their awfulness to each other is going to suck up the earth. For some reason, they are fighting a lot lately.
It's a territory thing. Sarah has always been somewhat territorial. She could completely reject a toy, or call it babyish, or never ever play with it, but the MINUTE Becca picks it up... "That's mine! Mom, she has my thingie!"
Over time, Becca has wised up to this behavior. She has learned that you don't just grab something of Sarah's (or that used to be Sarah's, or that could possibly at one time have been Sarah's, or that is even suspected of having been Sarah's) in plain view. You have to be Covert. This causes its own set of problems...
"Becca, what's that in your pocket?"
"What pocket?"
"That hole in your pants. On the side. The one that looks a lot like the hole in the other side. But the one on the right. If there's nothing in there, we're taking you to the emergency room, because you have a large tumor on you hip."
"Ohhhh. Well, nothing really."
"Becca."
"OK OK it's a yoyo! But it's not Sarah's, it just has an S on it! That doesn't mean anything! Anyone could have an S on their yoyo! It's just a letter! Like any other letter! It was in the toy box! In the bottom! It's been there for a long long time!"
Uh huh.
They argue mercilessly over Monopoly. I guess there really is a lot to argue about on that one.
- Who gets to be the purse dog?
- Did that role of the dice actually count?
- I called Wrigley Field. You can't buy it, I called it.
And then Becca says, "Hey, we're having a family night!" Oh joy. I don't think this is what Milton Bradley had in mind. In fact if there was a real guy named Milton Bradley, he is somewhere, shaking his head.
It's really not fun at all. As they get older, I find I'm having more and more trouble breaking it up. So sometimes I confess that I have to revert to the phrase that is the title of this post. I will tell you right now that I don't know what "it" is. But you don't want to get it. It's bad. It's painful. It's humiliating.
That's pretty much what I have left: the ability to instill fear of the unknown. I am trying to figure out what's next, because I know it's on borrowed time. Any suggestions, let me know.