Tag: sibling rivalry

children, health, mommyhood, parenting

Ad Nauseum

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Full Speed seems rife with imaginary stomach ailments as of late.  I believe his symptoms are being caused by an acute case of brotherly jealousitis.  Apparently watching your little brother get doted on post-surgery as well as getting to stay home with Mom during his recovery is enough to make any older brother’s stomach ‘hurt’.

Full Speed feebly tried to play the sick card this morning only to be revitalized by the promise of a PB&J sandwich in his packed lunch.  Upon his return home from the school day he gave a convincing performance that he was going to ‘PUKE!’ (which he never did but boy did he make me scramble) and needed several moments of quiet rest upstairs (which required being ‘checked-on’ ad nauseum by me).

He ‘rested’ 10 minutes tops and then he was miraculously ‘better’.  You should have seen the way he inhaled his dinner.  He was like a mini-human vacuum.  That put all concerns about the health of his stomach to rest.

My hope is side effects of brotherly jealousitis may include drowsiness, reduced opinion making and total compliance with maternal demands.

That is so beyond the realm of possibility I just made my own stomach hurt.

children, mommyhood

My Brother, My Rival

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Little brothers live to torture their elder siblings. I had the boys at McDonald’s. They both had eaten and had finagled their toys from me. They were Hotwheels cars or something like that and eventually little T.Puzzle steals his older brother’s car. Full Speed lets out a whiny cry and little T.Puzzle begins to run in circles around him all the while smiling with glee. I do my best to intervene but sense that T.Puzzle is about to take flight. I manage to get him back towards Full Speed and tell him to hand the stolen toy back to his brother nicely.

Of course he launches it across the room and instead of a sweet apology he barks out ‘sorry!’ like a drill sergeant.

I do my best to correct him. I make him pick up the toy and actually hand it to Full Speed. Then I have him say sorry until it sounds at least slightly (ever so slightly) sincere and we move on with our evening.

I try to cut the kid some slack. I am a younger sibling, too. I understand sometimes it’s hard to be in the shadow of an older sibling but I don’t condone being mean or violent. He could always do what I did. He could hit his older sibling and as Full Speed comes in for a counter attack, he could run behind me and scream, “Full Speed’s trying to hit me!” My sister used to love it when I did that to her (not really).

If I had to do it all again, I’m glad I have my sister. She has known me my entire lifetime and thankfully, still wants to be my friend. I hope my boys are friends when they grow older, too. By the looks of this following picture where little T.Puzzle is happily making Full Speed cringe, I’m not so sure. Fingers crossed.

children, life in pictures, mommyhood

See Spot Chew

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Since he was a baby, little T.Puzzle has carried around and slept with two blankets. One has a Brutus the Buckeye (Ohio State University’s mascot) attached to it and the other is a little blue dog. Of course, these blankets have seen their share of wear and tear. It doesn’t help that he is constantly chewing and picking at them (especially his Brutus, the edging is just about in shreds).

We were in the truck on our way home from vacation and little T.Puzzle had his blankets in his lap (thankfully, both traveled successfully across the country and back) when he proceeds to start chewing on his poor, helpless doggie blanket. When I look back to see why Full Speed is saying, “EW! What is that, T.Puzzle?”, I realize the stuffing is starting to come out of little doggie’s head. It was quite gross because at first glance, the wet, stuffing pouring out of T.Puzzle’s mouth looks like an undistinguishable mound of white goo. I actually was glad to identify it as the inside of his stuffed animal because that brought down the ick factor considerably.

I immediately tell T.Puzzle that he can’t chew on it any more. Of course he tests me a few times and then I have to say, “you chew on it again, I’m taking doggie and Brutus away and you will be in time-out.”

Full Speed throws in his two cents. “Mom, I’ll be your spotter. I’ll let you know if he does it again so you can put him in time-out.”

He was very serious about his role as ‘spotter’. I guess anything to help get his brother in trouble. Ah, the joys of sibling rivalry. Now, if only Full Speed was as good at sewing as he is at throwing his brother under the bus. I have a feeling Mom, doggie and the soon-to-be-disastrous attempts at needle and thread repair could really use the help.