The Joy of Siblings

Corbin is getting really really good at picking on his sisters .... specifically Olivia. He decided to demonstrate it for me this evening. He ran up to Eliana, grabbed ahold of her hair, and yanked as hard as he could. He kept pulling out the cords that attach the DVD player to the TV while Olivia was watching her movie. He stood next to Eliana beating her with a pillow while she said, "Please stop, Corbin. Please stop, Corbin. Please stop, Corbin." Later, that failing to get an emotional reaction or attention, he threw a little people dinosaur at her. I'm pretty sure it hurt a lot. He's also been calling names. His sisters have taught him two lovely names that he uses occasionally as his attention-getting weapon. He says "stupee" (stupid) and "dumb-ball." Gotta love that older-sister influence. So while I was cleaning up from dinner, he was repeatedly calling Olivia his prize names.

After getting him in trouble a couple times, it clicked. Yes, he was being naughty, and his goal was ATTENTION ... from ME!! (brilliant, Mommy). So I decided the next time I would ignore it. Sure enough, 2.5 seconds later, the opportunity presented itself. Olivia yells from the toy room, (yes, she's in on it, too), "Mommy, Corbin called me dumb ball again!!" So I yell back, "Thanks for telling me, Olivia." And do nothing. Corbin realizes I haven't taken the bait and I hear him yelling "Dumb-ball, Dumb-ball, Dumb-ball!" I take a deep breath, tell myself, wait. wait. wait.

And then Eliana, my miniature Mommy, decides to take action. She marches herself into the toy room and begins to lecture her siblings. "Corbin, you are being very naughty. If you don't change your behavior, you're going to have consequences." (Yes, that is really what she said.) When he continues, she says, "Corbin, you're going to lose this balloon if you can't behave." (Corbin responds, "I will NOT.") "See these scissors, Corbin? I'm going to cut up this balloon so you never use it again." And apparently it elicited enough of a behavior change, because I heard quiet for awhile in there .... or at least the good kind of noise. Quiet would be alarming.

Until Olivia got mad at Corbin for something and apparently hit him over the head with a toy. And Eliana decided to intervene again. "Olivia, you have the choice to walk away, or ask him to please stop, or if he does something really bad and it's a big problem, that's when you involve a grownup." I just about died laughing in the other room. Later, I was asking Eliana about it, and she says, "Well, Mrs. Beam has this webkins that's a green frog named gerbil and it has these rules for if people get in a fight ... you know, what you can do." I asked who Mrs. Beam was, "She's my counselor. Well, the school counselor."

Wow.