Acting Out

As previously reported, Kinley and Tanner have been amazingly resilient throughout the last 3 and a half months. So, why am I so surprised that they are choosing now to act out?

The last few days have been interesting around here.

Tanner waits until I'm feeding Crew to asks for something. If I say "no", or if I say "wait", he stands just barely out of arms' reach and screams for it at the very tippiest top of his lungs. If I'm feeding or rocking Crew, he won't come to me when I call. If Justin calls to him (for example, to change his nasty diaper), he turns around and walks over to me with a sassy little smile. Last night when he did it, I spanked him first and sent him to Daddy for another. As far as other attitude issues, since we have generally only used/needed time outs for tantrums until he calms down, Tanner is famous for being in time out for 30 seconds and coming out of the bathroom calm and collected. He was in time out for 45 minutes a few nights ago. Over feeding himself. And he don't cry pretty, I can tell you that.

Kinley isn't being perfectly angelic either. As Tanner is getting into more frequent trouble, Kinley is quite obviously relishing the moments. When I took Tanner upstairs yesterday to confess to Daddy that he colored on the fridge with a crayon, I commanded her to stay in her chair and finish eating her breakfast, but she snuck up the stairs to listen at the door and hear the fallout because she just couldn't help herself. She just had to know exactly how much trouble he was in. She was positively giddy.

Back to coloring with crayons; I have always prided myself and my children on the fact that they really aren't very destructive kids. We've had to get crayon off the wall only once, and that was when Tanner was maybe 18 months. Apparently, 3 and 6 are good ages to take it up the habit. I heard the sing-song voice "Mooooommy! Tanner is coloring on the waaaaaaall!" (insert smug little kindergarten face here). I put Crew's bottle down, raced to Tanner and totally lost it. In the middle of my tirade over the gigantic circle he had just created on the stairway wall, I looked over to the left and down a little and noticed the small pink stick figure. Hmmm... Only one person in this house draws stick figures and it isn't Tanner! What is going on here?!!

And that fridge incident? That came after the wall incident. I was surprised by it anyway, but I was shocked that he did it right in front of me. Like he didn't even care that I was in the kitchen making lunch, in full view of his destruction. And I won't swear to it, but I'm pretty sure that I saw a hint of a smile when I lit into him for that one.