Siu Jeun had A Day

Today was one of those days that I just felt like hiding from my middle child. Bless his heart, he has loads and loads of ideas. And I have loads and loads of reasons why those ideas aren't great ones. Unfortunately, for both of us, his brain works way faster than his mouth. By the time he's verbalized his idea, his brain has already decided to go through with it, so he never hears my protests or explanations.

This boy stretches me in so many ways...I think to myself, often, that Women raising Little Men has to be one of the best jokes in the cosmos. The one person in the house who may be able to relate to this brilliant little engineer of mine spends the majority of the day at an office ten miles away. Leaving me to fend for myself!

Let's see...today's examples.
1. On our way to the kids' gym class this morning, Siu Jeun turns to his sister in the car and says, "Let's have a foot fight!" They start kicking each other, laughing, and yelling. It was all in good fun, but...seriously. We all know that something called a "foot fight" can't end until someone is crying. I started to explain. Please use your inside voice. Please keep your hands and feet to yourself. Please calm down in the car, the baby is trying to fall asleep.
"Yes, ma'am."
A few minutes later, he takes a small blanket he was holding, and threw it over the seat in front of him so it landed on the baby. I pulled over and asked him to take the blanket OFF of the baby, as I couldn't see if it was covering her face and, besides, it made her cry to have stuff thrown onto her.
I look back in the rearview mirror, and see that he is completely serene. Too serene. Serene as in...every thing I've said in the past five minutes about not throwing, not kicking, not yelling...it's gone. And he's starting the Foot Fight game again with his sister. *sigh* I pulled out my calmest inner zen, and said, "Siu Jeun...buddy....in a few minutes you're going to be in trouble, and you're going to have no idea why. Please just be calm." I continue talking, and check the mirror to gauge his reaction. Well, his "reaction" was to pick up his blanket, grinning, paying no attention to me at all, and throw it onto the baby again.
Would it surprise you to find out that he got in trouble? Well, it certainly surprised him! Suddenly, Mommy was Mad. Really mad. Yelling mad. "You are in trouble now! Just like I said! You can't throw stuff onto the baby's face! You can't throw stuff at all!" And a lot more stuff along that line of reasoning. Again, the completely surprised face. I'm pretty sure all he hears all day is "blah blah blah blah blaaaaaaah no nonono blah blah blaaaaaah".
We made it to gym class, and he had forgotten all about it.

2. Back home from gym class, it was time for lunch so we could get Ming Wai off to school. The kids went outside to take care of the chickens. When Siu Jeun came back, there was some mud on the hem of his pants. "Mom, can I take a bath? I'm all dirty!" "Uh, buddy...it's time to get into the car to take Ming Wai to school. You can have a bath when you get home." "Awwwww, Mom!!!!! FINE. I just have to go potty!" He races up the stairs, to use the bathroom. A minute later, I give the final warning - time to get in the car. "But Mooooooooom!!!! I want a baaaaath!!!!" My genius has removed all of his clothes. And it's time to get in the car. He forgot about all of that. I swear he didn't do it on purpose. He simply forgot between the first stair and the last that we were leaving in 90 seconds. He wanted a bath.
We made it to school on time, and he got his bath when we got home.

Then it was noon. The rest of the day went a lot like the morning. He needs fewer words. A LOT fewer words. Unfortunately, that would mean that all I'd say to him is "no." All. Day. Long. *sigh* Being four is tough.

(Photo by Simply Sonja Photography)