The next t-shirt I buy must say 'Laundry Happens'.

It's All Coming Apart

Rex had his first official time out today, for hitting me (slapping me, really) across the face when I was giving his sister more attention. He's just starting to become competitive with her on most levels, and since I am a huge piece of real estate they both have to share, my kids usually take out their anger with each other on me. It's what I get for having two kids, I guess.

So lately if Veronica gets hurt (stubbing her toe landing on a metal toy airplane falling onto the ground after tripping over absolutely nothing) Rex will reenact the entire scene in order to get a little love, or a bandaid. (WHY will kids do just about anything for a bandaid? We have a rule: No blood, no bandaid. Maybe I shouldn't be so stingy, but I don't want to raise a pack of whiners and hypochondriacs, either.) Anyway, it's fun to watch Rex act out his pretend injuries. He will carefully fall to the floor, roll around clutching his foot, moaning in feigned agony. It makes me laugh, which then makes Veronica mad, because she thinks I am laughing at her real injury. (Which sometimes, I am. I am planning to pay for her therapy some day.)

Today Veronica was having one of her 'mornings', where she gets out of bed and absolutely everything in her life is totally wrong. She could get a huge chocolate bar and it would be too big, that sort of thing -- something that normally isn't an issue. So she was screaming in my lap for the tenth time over a thing I can't even remember (and don't have the energy now to fabricate) and over comes Rex. I didn't even see it coming, but the slap knocked me a little sideways.

And then the little bastard laughed.

I didn't even blink ... I just picked him up and put him in the big bathroom (one of the only rooms left that has a baby gate) and said, "That's your time out. No hitting Mommy!"

I think it worked, although I'm going to have to find a better spot for his time outs because we all need the bathroom. We have two other bathrooms but Veronica likes the big bathroom, and when she is in a 'mood' the last thing I need is for her not to have her freaking big bathroom available when she needs it.

I'm pretty psyched about having given Rex his first time out. We're going to start doing it for biting, too, which he does in spades, but only to people he really loves. (Me, again.) I'm already rehearsing it in my head: "No biting Mommy!"