BED TIME AND PARENTING

About 5 years ago I felt like a pretty good mom. Parenting in general had been fun for me. I felt like I was not too strict and not too lenient.

My boys have pretty well listened to good 'ol mom when she says to do something. They get into mischief like prank calling on sleepovers at other people's homes or giving their friend's nicknames because of what they wear or what they eat. For instance, Kazz's friends are Socks, Pink Hair Girl, Maestro, Shorty, and so on and so forth. They all make up names for each other and have since they were like 7 years old. At any rate, those are the big parenting issues I've had to deal with so far so I'm thinking I got this parenting thing down pat.

So I say to myself, "Hey let's have more children."
Brian says to himself, "Hey let's have more children. This is fun."

So, we go out and get more children. We decide we'll take two at first and the next day decide to take one more.

Yes that's what happened. We went out and got them. LOL

Little did we know that 3 at one time is interestingly different than one at a time. Two of the same age....is CRAZY! Now don't get me wrong. We love our boys. We LOVE LOVE LOVE them. They are awesome and sweet and ours forever and a day and they can never do anything to make us question that. BUT what they can make us question is our parenting!!

Two. Two little same aged boys are a different species than one little boy. One little boy can be talked to, reasoned with, and pretty well "handled" very easily and without much fuss. We say "no, no" they say, "okay"

Two little boys make that type of parenting very hard to do.

Why? The one who would listen without question watches the other one test the limits. When the one testing the limits doesn't get killed by us they realize that we have no real power. All we have is, "Sit there and think about your actions." Well la tee da...whoopy doo. Even a smack on the butt isn't too scary and eventually one fateful day they realize,

"I can do whatever I want!"

For instance,

"Kole, go to bed. " "Okay." says Kole.
"Daxx, go to bed." "No" says Daxx.

chitter chatter, walk him to bed, tuck him in. Lots of attention going to Daxx so mom gives lots of attention to Kole too. Mom has to catch Kole being good to praise him. Mom has to catch Daxx being good to praise him. Mom has to pay attention to these boogers and put in a lot of time so she can keep order in the house. Eventually mom gets very tired. Mom slacks off. Kids get a whiff of exhaustion and immediately become united to gang up against mom's authority.

Case in point...

Bed time. It became so crazy with "go to bed!" "Sit down" "Stay in your bed" "no talking" "don't take the covers, sheets and dust ruffle off the beds" "Don't play with toys at bedtime" etc etc... that Brian and I decided to take the toys out of the room during naps and bedtimes. All toys gone! Whoo hoo... we roll them out of there in the evening and think we have this thing conquered. It got very quiet so I THOUGHT the boys were in bed.

Little did I know that they....oh just look for yourself.

That was the view from the door.

What is it? They found a marker to draw on the wall. That wasn't fun enough so they took the bedding off one of the beds and pulled the mattress into the floor between the beds.

Well that must have made them tired because they were zonked out...on the bed slanted between the beds! LOL You know, because to sleep on the other one wouldn't have been as fun apparently.

Yep, I left them there to sleep the night away. They didn't make a peep. Go figure!