Clarifications For Future Therapists

For my birthday Michael made me a card out of perler beads.  It says "I LOVE MOM."

Looking at it from the back it says "EVOL I MOM."  Honestly, a better summary of me I could not have written myself.  At least judging by the way my kids keep crying every time I so much as look at them.

We've had so much wailing lately.  And pouting.  And sulking.  Coincidentally, I've been spending a lot of time with my hand in the candy bowl that is stationed high on our closet shelf.  David tied it up in a plastic sack so I wouldn't spend all the days till Halloween eating candy for breakfast, lunch and dinner, but little does he know that there is a hand-size hole right where the knot is, which means that four or five times a day my fingers find their way in.  (My hands are like "Thing" in the Addams family.  I can be cleaning the kitchen and yet they still find their way into the closet).

But seriously, my children are so sensitive lately.  We're practically drowning in tears around here.

Just last week we were all snuggled on the couch to watch a family movie.  When it ended, David and I sent the kids upstairs to get their jammies on and took advantage of our momentary childlessness to steal a few kisses.  All of a sudden something shifted on the stairs, and we burst out laughing when we discovered that Leah was watching us, wide-eyed, through the stair railing.  As we laughed, she turned and continued up out of our view.  Thirty seconds later she was sitting on the floor just beyond the stairs, crying her eyes out and wailing through sobs, "Don't laugh at me!  It's not nice to laugh at me!"

(Also heard this week?  "You're not being nice to me!" and, my personal favorite, "You don't love me!" -- said after I scolded her for biting her brother.  You're right, Leah...  If I loved you, I would let you bite your brother).

Michael and Matthew have also gotten in on the crying-because-Mom-and-Dad-are-laughing act, with the most notable incident being Michael bawling because David and I started grinning and giggling at each other when Michael began singing little French songs as he set the table for dinner.  No matter what we said, we could not convince him that we were laughing because he was SO.  DANG.  CUTE.

And Matthew... sigh.  Living in the same house as his arch nemesis is not easy.   Yesterday started with  "I don't like Michael!" and ended with "I don't want Michael to talk to me."  When Michael finished his dinner and was excused to play legos, Matthew went about eating his meal silently.  But then Michael called to us from his bedroom and Matthew dropped his fork, assumed an indignant scowl, and refused to keep eating.  "Matthew, what's the matter?" we asked.

"Michael TALKED to me," he said.

We couldn't help it.  We burst out laughing.  Not at him of course.  Because of him.

There's a difference.  We swear.