I had to ask him."Why?" It had been a relatively peaceful evening. Eveyone had enjoyed church. I had enjoyed my peace and quiet at home, and I was looking forwad to sending them all to bed shortly and then going to sleep myself, but with dropping that bomb in the middle of the table, I knew it was going to be heated.
We do often engage in a family hobby of,'Defend your side." Its yet another one of the games I came up it and its a take on my days on the mock trial team from college where a topic is basically put on trial and one of the kids is the defence, another is the prosecution and I am, of course the judge. We hold a trial to see if the topic or sometimes even if the child is guilty of the offence and what the punishment should be. Its how we decided to ban video games, most tv programs, and quite a few other things. it gets the kids thinking. Daughter is really good at it and she will argue a stone to tears. Stubby is not so good at it. He tends to get angry and stomp off and throw a baby fit.
Son started presenting evidence about why he believed the aforementioned were gingers and thus souless, and I quickly disarmed daughter of the ballbat and reminded her that while wanting to defend the boy she adores and prays for daily is an honorable thing, using violence to do it is probably not the best way. I got her to start thinking up her arguements in his defense while Stubby just started getting louder and angrier. He is like a terrier. He gets wound up and angry and then wont let go of something until its dead or ripped apart, so I knew unless we got him settled or distracted quickly, it was all going to end badly. Daughter started presenting her arguments,(and subtle threats to my eldest son) and I had to say I was impressed. She will make a hell of a lawyer, (or assassin) when she is older. Son She glared at Stubby for interrupting her arguments and told him that if he didnt sit down and be quiet was going to,"Put a hurting on him" because,'Souls were at stake" and since she had been going to church longer she felt like more of an authority to handle it. At that point, Stubby stomped off to pout for a bit, and my eldest son listened to her arguments a bit longer and then tried to annoy her more by just picking on something else about her favorite boy, but she said,"You are just jealous, so I am done talking to you." and she took her monkey and left. I say she won that one. Stubby needs to work on his technique. He has always been more emotionally fragile than my other children and I try to get his older brother to see that, but its hard to know what to do. I mean do you continue to baby him and tell people to not pick on him because he will stomp off and cry, or do you work to help him become stronger and less likely to do that? Ive been struggling with that one since I got him back. Sticky tends to stay out of these, he knows they can get loud, and often boisterous, and often he is the one who contributes the topic for the trials.
Last night we also held one to ban all inappropriate tv for ALL kids in the house. My eldst son had a bad habit of watching objectionable shows when the little kids were around and even allowing them to watch. I dont allow the little kids to watch,"South Park,(though I like it)family Guy,Cleveland,American Dad, Bobs Burgers" or any of those garbage reality shows like,"Jersey Shore" and I tend to look down on people who do. So when Sticky came into the kitchen last night chanting,'DICK!" I was like,'What the HELL is going on?" Stubby dimed him off and said that they were watching,"SouthPark" with their brother and one of the characters had been saying that. Oh. Hell. NO. Big brother got in trouble,little boys got in trouble, and the edict was passed that if any small children were caught watching any of the aforementioned shows, that ALL television would be shut off for an entire MONTH.
Stubby promptly announced that it was not gingers that were souless, it was me.
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