For The Love of Your Brother! | Life Love and Hiccups: For The Love of Your Brother!
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Monday 13 January 2014

For The Love of Your Brother!

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This is more of a 'please tell me this is perfectly normal' type of post than anything else, but maybe with a dash of a 'I really need to vent' theme.

These two little darlings of mine aka my two youngest rug rats are aged 6 and soon to be 9 (as I am frequently reminded) and to look at them in that photo above you could be forgiven for presuming that they have little wings sprouting from their backs and shiny golden halos hovering above their heads.

Oh how misleading photos can be.

Alright to be fair to them they are little angels maybe 40-50% of the time (at the moment)  but the good behaviour is usually reserved for when they are with other people. At home with Carl and I, the arrow points in the other direction towards the red 'could be mistaken for demons' area.

Seriously, one minute they are best buddies and taking turns in being captain of the Dog Club and head chef of the Stacky Bros cafe and then in the blink of the eye they are scrunching up each others artworks, smashing each others Lego creations and even attempting to smash up each other.

Worse still is when no one believes you or thinks you are exaggerating because when other people around they behave like perfectly acceptable humans.

I don't get it - although if I ask my mother she will not so gently remind me that my brother and I pioneered the Little Turds club and we were frequently attempting to maim each other or call each other the worst possible names we could think up.

But how did this happen to me?

I was only ever going to have perfectly behaved children who loved each other sick like they do in that Duggar family TV show (19 kids and still popping them out or something like that).

My children were NEVER going to be the type to break into a full blown Cage fighting tournament in the middle of Medicare and my children were NEVER going to purposely run a shopping trolley over each others toes.

My children would share the last muffin, not feed it to the dog so no one else gets it.

Who stole my perfectly behaved children from their bassinets in the hospital and replaced them with these Jekyl and Hydes?

Oh, I do love them, actually I adore them to bits... but as I write this post I can hear the arguing from the other room and I am once again reminded of why I am even writing a post like this in the first place.

These holidays I have shouted to the point our neighbors must think I have finally completely lost it. I have sent them to their rooms, grounded them, banned electronics, cancelled movie night, cancelled a play date and I have even enrolled them in Summer School... OK the last one was just me pretending to enroll them in a Summer school that I googled just to put a little fear into them.

I have done it all and yet they still fight.

I have bribed, punished, rewarded and reprimanded and quite frankly I am exhausted. I don't remember them ever fighting this much before, so I am kinda pinning all my hopes on the fact it is just a age stage they are going through.

I can't help but wonder - is it they are spending TOO much time together, or do they need to be put in one of those get along shirts you see on Pinterest to enforce more bonding? Is this Karma and the Universe paying me back on behalf of my Mum and Dad for the way my brother and I sometimes behaved, or do I just suck at parenting and therefore my punishment is having to listen to their fighting for the rest of my life.

Could it be that this just normal kid behaviour? Please Dr Phil, why won't you answer by 132 emails?

And so I beg of you my friends, please tell me what works for you?

Do yours frequently fight or are they like perfectly behaved children who hold each others hands to cross the road and insist on drinking out of the same slushie but with two straws. (YES those children really do exist, I saw them with my own eyes the other day at the shops and I had to restrain myself from hating them or at the very least asking the mother what she uses to sedate them).

Please tell me your children can be right little turds too and if not, just make it up and make me feel normal. I will be forever grateful.