Simpsons fans can sing along. Use the “Itchy and Scratchy” theme song as your model.
Between house-hunting, packing, our looming move and the loss, this summer has not been one for the kids’ highlight reels. We haven’t had much old-fashioned summertime fun, except our short trip to Grand Junction over Memorial Day weekend. Aidan went to camp. We watched fireworks. That has been it.
We didn’t sign the kids up for any activities or lessons because we didn’t know where we would be, and when. It would have been a nightmare to live 30 miles one-way from daily swim lessons, or 20 miles from soccer practice. Consequently, we have had a lot of close together time. And it isn’t going well.
While the kids truly love each other and play well most of the time, their fighting has been escalating. Hubby and I helped the situation by purchasing two Light Sabers for Sam’s birthday. Now the screeching, name-calling, and tug-of-wars over toys has been enhanced by the ability to conk each other on the head with big plastic retractable sticks.
Their worst form of fighting has become name calling. I do not like name calling and I swoop in when I hear it. Tommy is our most hardened repeat name-calling offender and always has been. When he was still in diapers, he called his siblings “Dipah!” when they did things he didn’t like. When he graduated to underwear, we noticed his insults graduated too: “You’re an underwear!”
Lately, he has adopted a new withering insult to end all insults. A scenario:
Aidan is standing in front of the TV when the Wiggles are asking the timeless question “Can you point your fingers and do the twist?”
Tommy can’t properly follow the choreography. He gets increasingly agitated. Rather than saying, “Aidan, could you please move so I can see?” his three-year-old brain has formulated a new way to get attention…
“Aidan! You are a Diet Coke!”
She will turn around and say “huh?”
“You are a Diet Coke!”
She shrugs her shoulders and moves.
You know Tommy is mad when the words “Diet” and “Coke” are launched in one of his siblings general direction. It is an area of his behavior I am struggling with nipping in the bud. It is like having to nip an entire oak tree at this point. Why couldn’t he have picked a more classic insult, like “poopy-head” or “booger”? The other kids would become angrier, he would see those names do not get his intended result, and perhaps he would knock it off. They would inform me, so that I could put Tommy in a time out or take away his toys. They love to tattle if the word “poop” is involved.
But when he calls them a Diet Coke, you can tell they are mentally scratching their heads before they surrender, just because they can’t decide if being a Diet Coke is truly horrible.
“Diet Coke” works. And that is why it is so hard to get Tommy to stop being such a…Diet Coke.
Clever little guy. It’s funny to read about, but I can see that name calling demands a no tolerance policy.
I’m sorry that they’re fighting so much, but in your usual fashion, you have me laughing about something that probably drives you nuts most of the time. At least Tommy uses real words. Peter just makes them up. How do you respond to, “You’re a schnucky!”?
Thanks, Mopsy and Shayne for making me laugh on the heels of a less than stellar morning in my home. At one point I sent all the kids to their rooms just so I wouldn’t have to hear them. Oy!
My 3yo boy says doh-doh head (as in diaper head) for his name calling. It’s so funny because he can speak just fine.
It seems Lexie, you and I are all sharing a brain today. I just got done typing about my 3yo boy too.
I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t laugh, but you’ve got to give the little guy credit for originality! My 3yo isn’t into name-calling…yet. His favorite thing to say is “I don’t like you and I’m not gonna play with you ANYMORE!” LOL!
Our kids are very creative. When Adam gets mad at my sister he tells her that she is a piece of applesauce. I don’t know how they make this stuff up.