Aggravated

Sam’s going through this phase (hopefully) right now where nothing is his fault. Hit his brother? “But he tempted me!” Got caught jumping from from furniture after being told not to? “Gabe tricked me into it!” Argh. I’ve talked and explained and given examples about why that’s just not acceptable, but he does it again and again. This evening, I let him go out to play before dinner, telling him it wouldn’t be long before I called him in, but I wound up having to call him six times (not being able to go after him, with food on the stove) before I finally started heading out for him and saw him standing with a friend a few houses down. His reasoning for not coming? “It’s [friend's] fault! She told me it wasn’t you calling!” I told him that, as he knew I would be calling, the burden was on him to go check when he heard a voice yelling something that sounded like “Samuel!” – especially after the second or third time…

And then I planned, and told the kids as much, to let them watch a movie tonight, but while Gabe was finishing up his food, he got the idea to taunt Sam by telling him how much he hated nature and wanted to cut down all the trees. (Boy, does somebody know his brother’s hot buttons or what?) I could have dealt with that, but Sam snapped and was pinching Gabe before I could intervene. So I snapped and called off the movie. Shot myself in the foot, there; I needed the quiet time it would have afforded me. I dunno. Maybe they can earn it back somehow. The living room needs picked up, what with all the Lego play going on recently.

(Actually, I looked over just now, and that’s exactly what Sam’s doing. (Is he reading my mind? Am I that predictable? More likely, knowing him, it’s guilt-cleaning. But he’s also making nice with his brother, too – just brought him a heart he found under the toy boxes, and it appears very sincere. I won’t break out the popcorn yet, but at least the evening isn’t degenerating completely into a pile of tears and recriminations!)