Taming the Savage Beast
I took my kids to a kiddie music concert at the library yesterday. That sounds like a perfectly reasonable sentence but let me tell you why it's not. I have three kids. Three. Clearly I am not approaching Duggar status or even John and Kate (John/Kate John or Kate-whatever) family size, but some days three feels like eighteen.
I have an oldest girl who could go anywhere. She walks into a room and has the names of everyone there and at least three play dates set up before I even finish locking the car door.
My Middle One is a bit of a loose canon. He can be delightful. He is kind and loves other kids. He is great at sharing (with everyone except his siblings) and has even perfected the art of losing and winning gracefully.
He is also very sensitive to noise and crowds. When he is tired all sense of reason is out the window (like most of us) and thus is quick to tantrum. He is also really tall for his age. He is four and looks the same as all his sister's first grade friends. So when he loses his mind in public it is not only physically taxing, but there are all kinds of judgmental fish eyes sent our way. I have gotten over it (mostly) but I still have to fight the urge to yell, "he is only four people -lay off!".
The Baby is a two year old boy who is... well...two. He wants what he wants when he wants it and you can probably guess what happens if he doesn't get it. Yeah, it's not pretty.
The result of this chaos is not that we don't go out much, it's that we don't play with others much. We have people over to our house where it's contained and I know where the time out spots are. We go out a lot as a foursome to the beach or parks, because I am not mortified if they ruin my good time.
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