I Will Be Sad

Night times are always chaotic in our household. We have to wrangle three kids and a doggo and sometimes nobody wants to listen. There's a lot of things to get done to make sure that they're showered up, their teeth are brushed, the vitamins are in their tummies, and our doggo is settled. A few weeks ago, one night in particular was at least funny.

My 7 year old daughter and 6 year old son were running around upstairs. They were playing really well and getting riled up. What was not going well was that my 2 year old son L was not getting involved. That made him really angry and he started to scream. Break time and cleaning time was over and that meant heading upstairs to diffuse the situation.

I asked what was happening to understand the situation. E and C were claiming that L was taking stuff and not playing well with them. I had to reset them to let them know they were the older siblings. It was important to not leave others out, especially if they are much younger. L doesn’t understand as much and it would be better to include him in something they can all play together. I brought up an old example where that happened to C when E and their older cousin were playing something different, which he felt excluded from. They understood after the lengthy conversation and story.

At that moment without breaking stride, L said that he would be sad really loudly. He was paying attention to the story and actually understood most of the context! It was great timing and my wife got a good laugh out of that one. It helped lighten up the mood even further and the night was a little less chaotic after that!