short fuse

Yesterday I took the boys to the park. Andy played while Benji slept. Eventually Ben woke up hungry. I tried to feed him in a quiet corner of the playground, and tried to be discreet, but everywhere I went people followed me, and Ben didn't seem to want to eat under a blanket where it was hot and stuffy. So we had to sit in the car so I could properly nurse the little guy. To make it up to Andy, I offered to take him to Dairy Queen.

I guess Ben wasn't full yet, though, because he started griping. By the time we hit Elm Grove he was downright honked and began to yowl like a Siamese.

Andy cried, "Mommy! Benjamin's hungry!"

"I know, Andy," I said. "He's just going to have to deal with it for a few minutes until we get home."

At this, Benji started to make what I call the angry goat noise. (Big inhale, followed by a screech that turns into an enraged, quivering bleat.) Andy hates it when Benji cries, and sits in his car seat turning red, yanking on his own hair, kicking the seat and having a hissy fit of his own because he can't handle it. (Now he knows how we felt when he was a baby.)

I looked in the rear view mirror and Andy's hands were on his ears and his face was scarlet.

"Benjamin!" he cried. "Deal with it!"

I said, "Andy, he's a baby and he's hungry."

"But he's not dealing with it!"

Benji let out another howl.

"Benjamin! DEAL WITH IT!"

Howl.

"BENJAMIN! I SAID DEAL WITH IT! YOU'RE NOT DEALING WITH IT! DEAL WITH IT!"

Needless to say, Benjamin never dealt with it.

Andy didn't deal with it so well either.

aggressive much?

Me: I love pelicans.

Andy: I love to punch them in the nose.

cheese with your whine?

I think Andy is having a hard time adjusting to life with a little brother, having to share the spotlight and share the available parental attention. He's doing his best, but his emotions are running a tad high and they seem to have a hair trigger. He melts down quite easily. (More easily than normal, that is.)

Yesterday he asked for a banana. I was feeding Benji so I told him to go upstairs and pull a chair up to the counter and get his own banana. He's perfectly capable of doing this.

I heard a great deal of thudding and tromping and thonking, following by one big wham! on the kitchen floor. I knew this was the snowball which would set off the meltdown avalanche, and sure enough, he came down the stairs in tears.

"What's wrong Andy?" I asked him.

He could barely talk because he was focusing so much energy on his over-dramatic whining.

Finally I heard, "I dropped the greenie!"

"What?"

"I dropped the greenie Mommy!"

"The what?"

"The greenie!" And he threw himself down on the floor.

I put an irritated Benjamin down and went over to Andy and plucked him up off the floor. "What is a greenie, Andy?"

He answered, "That big green banana up in the kitchen."

We don't have any green bananas. They are all quite yellow and spotty and of a normal size. So I grabbed Benji and went upstairs to find the world's biggest zucchini on the kitchen floor, and zucchini guts all over the chair he'd used to retrieve it. In addition, there were three semi-peeled bananas smashed on the counter.

None of which he would touch. While I was cleaning up the banana mess he went back downstairs. I found him eating Nutter Butters.

told ya so

Remember the movie "The Rescuers"? It was about a little unloved orphan girl who gets kidnapped by some evil people who own mean alligators. And they force her to go down into a sea cave to look for a diamond every day. And eventually two little mice (voiced by Eva Gabor and Bob Newhart) come along and save her. We got the movie long ago, before we realized it was totally inappropriate for a 3 or 4-year-old. But of course Andy found out it was hiding in his DVD case, waiting to be watched. And so the bugging began.

Monday: "Can we watch The Rescuers, Mommy?"
"No. It's too scary for you."

Tuesday: "Can we watch The Rescuers, Mommy?"
"No. It'll scare you."

Wednesday: "Can we watch The Rescuers, Mommy?"
"No. It's going to upset you."

Thursday: "Can we watch The Rescuers, Mommy?"
"NO ANDY!"

Friday: "Can we watch The Rescuers, Mommy?"
"Fine! You can watch it tomorrow. But it's going to scare you!"
"No it won't!"

I manage to put him off for one more week until....

Today: "Can we watch The Rescuers, Mommy?"
"Yes. Fine."

I put in the dvd and hit play. The movie starts with a sad little girl singing a sad song and throwing a "rescue me" bottle with a note into the bayou. And a shot of the mean alligators.

12 seconds elapse.

Andy bursts into tears.

And it's over.

shawn created this

"Daddy, hang on while I get a book so I can smack you in the stomach!"

temper, temper

During one of today's self-pitying temper tantrums:

Andy: I'm a beautiful boy but nobody loves me!

it's true

I've had the baby, so our lives have changed quite a bit.

However, Andy's sense of humor (if you can call it that) has not changed.

We were sitting in the backyard this afternoon, Andy in the sandbox and I in a chair while baby Benjamin napped in his car seat. When he started to wake up I said, "Andy, I'm going to go feed Benji up on the porch so I can have some privacy."

He replied, "Okay Mommy. Nobody wants to see your boob."