It's all the rage!

Lately, tempers are THE THING to talk about at our house.

This is because Gabriel most definitely inherited mine, which gives Jon great joy--something about "what goes around, comes around."  Hmph.  I'm not the only one around here with a temper.  Mine isn't even the worst, just the quickest to flare.  After lengthy discussion, we decided that there are three "brands" of temper in our neck of the woods:

Jon's:  Ethan also has this version of a temper.  We'll call it the Diesel.  Takes a while to start, but keeps going forever.
Mine:  The Ferrari of tempers...we go from happy to hacked off in 2.4 seconds and from hacked off to happy in 3.5 seconds.  Handed down with pride by Scandinavian Vikings.
Elijah's:  also know as "his mother's."  It's quick and vicious.  Easy to get going, hard to appease, and something's going to get hit.

I bring this up because I was recently the target of Elijah's temper.  Elijah was sick Monday.  Now, he has a bad habit...he picks his nose and eats the fruit of his labors.  It's disgusting, I know.  We can't get him to stop.  We've tried EVERYTHING humane with no result.  But then, I don't know what's worse...eating it or smearing it on the wall, where it dries and is IMPOSSIBLE to remove without taking the dry wall off along with it.

OH!  And to Ethan's disgust, he ALSO picked GABRIEL'S nose and...yeah...did the same thing with that prize as he does with the others.  There was massive gagging going on around the board.   Urgh.  I still throw up a little thinking about it.

OK.  To summarize:  Elijah's fingers are dirty on the best of days...when he's sick...the urp factor increases.  So, obviously, I didn't want him getting in Gabriel's grill (literally) and told him, quote, "Keep your sick fingers away from Gabriel."

Oops.  Wrong thing to say.  Elijah spent the next fifteen minutes pitching a fit in his room (he goes there without being told--he's figured out he gets in less trouble screaming at his pillow than at me.  Nice, huh?).  At any rate, he couldn't stop himself and eventually decided I needed to be told off.  So imagine me, doing the dishes, and my uber-cute middle son comes storming out of his room to confront me.  It goes like this:

Elijah:  MEEGAN! (plants himself firmly in the kitchen.  Actually puffs up his chest and puts both fists on his hips, like Superman) That was not NICE!  There are other words you can say!  You could have said (takes one fist off his hip to start holding up fingers as his lists them) DISGUSTING or TERRIBLE or GROSS or...

Meegan:  (smothers laughter)

Elijah: (confused.  Was NOT expecting humor)  WELL, IT'S TRUE!!!  (runs back into room)

Elijah then proceeded to punish me by running back and forth in front of the door into the kitchen really fast so I "couldn't see him." 

Now, lest I be accused of turning into a softie--later, when he had calmed down, I did talk to Elijah about being respectful.  I also apologized, because it  really wasn't my intention to hurt his feelings, which I did.  I just wanted him to not pick Gabe's nose or smear his boogers on the baby.  We also discussed not picking fights.  Or noses.  (Again.)  Also, if the list of alternative words would really have been less hurtful, because there's no such thing as a bad time for a vocab lesson, right???


This got me thinking about the funny things kids do when they are mad to punish their parents.  Elijah wouldn't let me see him, but I...I did THIS:

(Mom, I apologize in advance for the following)

Yes, Mom.  The reason I put on your bra was to get back at you.  I don't remember why, but I do remember being reeeeeaaaaaallllly mad at you.  Seriously.  I actually remember digging through your drawer of unmentionables while thinking, "This will SHOW HER!" I'm sure it was something incredibly serious AND unreasonable, like being made to take a bath or go to bed.  Thanks again for letting me survive to adulthood...

But now...I have Gabe to contend with.  We actually got into a Battle of the Wills yesterday.  He wanted to walk around (which requires ME to walk around);  I wanted to fold laundry.  Actual conversation--which was strangely one-sided because--oh, yeah--I was arguing with an INFANT:  "Gabe, you know, if you would let me put you down, you could figure out how to get around by yourself!"  At least I didn't raise my voice.  That counts for something, right????  And do I really want his reign of terror to start any sooner than necessary?  Not really...

Karma is vicious.  Mom, you can start laughing now...