Bull In A China Shop

For all Gods blessings in my life, this wasn't how I pictured closing out my twenties. Not in any dramatic WOE IS ME way. I am happy, fulfilled, challenged, grateful and blessed. I have an awesome, hardworking, caring, dedicated husband. I have a safe and warm house, filled with lots of love. I have two awesome little boys that are my EVERYTHING. I live to smell them, hold them, hear them, teach them, this list could go on forever, I won't bore you. I am a parent, my kids rock.

So what I'm getting at is this, I NEVER pictured being a mother to boys. It it insane really. I mean you would think that I'd at least have considered the possibility since they are, I don't know, HALF THE POPULATION. I came from all girls, my mom came from all girls, my dad loved being a dad of all girls. We were just a girl family. We were the kind of girl family that played sports, did yard work and built things, so I'm no fish out of water over here in Boyland but...I am firmly encamped in Boyland.

So one of the things I never pictured having to deal with is how to keep my children from killing one another. Sure with girls there are some fights. There are some accidents where someone gets hurt. There are some, pushes, hits, pinches, that must be addressed. But on a whole raising girls, there is a whole lot less of the type of "fighting" or "playing" that can land someone in the hospital.

We are only at the beginning of this brother vs. brother roller coaster. But it feels like I have to maintain a constant vigilance, because J has begun taking MUCH to big an interest in his brother. Not like a "Good morning brother, how are you? Would you like to watch me play with my trains?" kind of interest. More like a, "Imma wrestle brother. Imma ride on brother's back. Imma shove leaves into brother's face, Imma feed brother my almonds," kind of interest.  J just doesn't seem to understand that his 3 month old brother doesn't wrestle or give horseback rides, and shouldn't eat leaves or TREE NUTS.

Having a newborn in a house with a three year old is like having a bull in a china shop, except the china shop is ACTUALLY YOUR BABY. 
I think this is why F immediately rolls to his stomach when he is on the ground, why he is trying to crawl already. What we think of as determined, adorable, albeit agonizingly slow army crawling, is really just a desperate attempt to escape.

No amount of parenting, gentle correcting, conjoling, pleading, compromising, bribing, or punishing seems to make a difference here. I am hesitant to limit brother to brother contact but that feels like the logic next step. I don't want F getting hurt. So far, thank God he hasn't, but at this point it is possible.

TOO COOL TO "LISTEN" NOW MOM

J isn't particularly aggressive or anything, but he is STUBBORN. I think it is his stubborness that drives most of his unwanted behavior toward his brother. He knows we don't like it, so he does it for attention. I tell you what man, three is a challenge. I am 14 days in people, and there ain't no turning back.

TERRIBLE TWOS? Lies. It must be evolution or something because at some point since the dawn of man the Terrible Twos shifted to Terrible Threes, and no has bothered to correct it. The threes are MUCH worse than the twos. Experienced parents will almost always support this claim.  Parents of two year olds, myself included, tend to think they have an angel child when they breeze through the first nine months of their child's second year. I am sorry to tell you, shit hits the fan much closer to three. You have not escaped your brief stay in hell. Someone just gave you the wrong dates, sweetheart.

 Let's just stop this nonsense shall we? Call a joint meeting of the Big Six,  pass a resolution, whatevs. Just so that innocent parents don't feel like a thief in the night came and stole way their sweet little angel and replaced him with a mini dictator. I make a motion to BANISH the Terrible Twos from our tongues and replace it with the Terrible Threes. We are evolving or devolving, most assuredly, it's one of the two. It's definitely a sign of the times.