The Snarky Momma occasionally (okay, sometimes) reviews products on her review blog related to parenting, domestic goddess-try, and personal care. Her opinions are honest, based on her own experiences, and will be published even if she does not find the product satisfactory. She will always disclose how she got a product and whether she was compensated to talk about it. If you want to send her a product, contact her via email at tiffany [at] snarkymomma [dot] com.
Friday, July 09, 2010
Big Brother.
I’ve been holding off on this post for a couple of days because I wanted to be as tactful as possible. I didn’t want to sit here and type out of frustration; I wanted to be as level-headed as allowable by my current hormonal state.
Answering the question “How is Rosco handling the new baby transition?” requires me to hold back on the sort of language I’d normally use. Because he’s 3. Actually, he’s actually closer to 4 than 3—he’ll be 4 in November.
Rosco is being a terror. Now, even before Em was born he was expressing his “three-ness” but now he’s escalated the behavior to something that’s sort of shocking. Fortunately, he hasn’t done anything to the baby directly, but has been taking a lot of…what’s the right word to use here…resentment?...out on Scott and me. He’s jealous and probably a little possessive. I learned this several weeks ago when his aunt sat on her mother’s (his nana’s) lap. He told his aunt, in no subtle terms, to get off his nana’s lap—that she couldn’t sit there.
I think what really annoys him is that his usual playmate, Scott, is occupied with other things right now (home improvement disasters and, of course, Baby). It’s not my habit to get down on the floor and play trains and cars with him—I leave that to Scott. Boy toys bore the life out of me. So, when Scott tells Rosco that he “can’t play right now” you better believe that within a few minutes Rosco will start acting out in some way. That may mean flogging you with his blanket (which gets taken away for the rest of the day), kicking and throwing toys, screaming, crying, and back-talk.
The back-talk is the worst part because it’s so odd to hear that kind of disrespect coming out of a child that young. It’s like he’s challenging the power structure in this house (he doesn’t realize that the decisions he’s allowed to make are because we allow him to make them).
He often won’t fulfill simple requests without threat of punishment. He makes small things difficult. He tries his damnedest to throw a monkey wrench into the routine, what little there is around here.
When we started confining him to his room the first act of retaliation was to piss himself. Now, this is a child who has been toilet-trained for close to a year. He takes himself to the bathroom. When Scott found him and asked why he did it Rosco responded “I dunno” and laughed. (Scott’s much kinder than me because my impulse would have been to give the kid a cold shower to clean it off.)
Next, he destroyed the blinds in his room. Scott’s going to replace them because they look really bad from the outside, but I think that’s probably unwise. Again, when Scott asked what he was thinking and why he broke the blinds Rosco responded “I dunno” and laughed.
The kid has absolutely no fear of consequences (other than being shut into his room, and when that happens he’ll bang and thrash on the door like a child possessed). He’s wild.
I dread Scott going back to work next week. Maybe things will be better when there aren’t two parents at home for him to play off each other. In the past Scott and I would argue (in front of Rosco) about whether or not I was being too much of a hard-ass instead of presenting some sort of united front. I think Scott sees now that I try to nip things in the bud early BECAUSE they escalate this way. He can’t always see what I see or know that I may have already dealt with a particular behavior (numerous times) while he was at work.
[Yes, I’d love to be a sweet, doting mommy for Rosco, but Rosco has sucked all the sweet right out of me as of late. There you go - that’s my weight-loss secret.]
What helps some at this point is having had other moms tell me that they have children who behaved similarly after they brought home newborns. I feel less like I (or we) did something wrong although it’s hard not to feel helpless when nothing you do is making the situation better.
I hope he just gets over it soon. Em is no threat to him. They’re far enough apart that they won’t share toys, and really it’s his schedule she’ll be a slave to for the next few years. He doesn’t even have to be a “good” big brother as long as he leaves her alone (unless there’s a fire or something, you know).
Oh well. On another note, next time I’ll talk about how the cloth diapering is going.
I am sorry that this time has become somewhat “bittersweet” for you with Rosco’s behavior. So much of what you are describing I could have wrote. Little man will be 4 in October and I am seriously at my wits end with the back talk and non-compliance. I looked forward the whole school year to being a stay at home mom for the summer, only to feel like a complete failure! Anyway, didnt mean to make this about me. Stay strong and here’s hoping “its just a phase”
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/09 at 07:10 PM
***
Congrats on the new baby. She looks beautiful.
I know this is a bit late but I’ve been away for a couple weeks.
Hopefully soon things will calm down and he’ll realize that she is there to stay and be better behaved.
I recommend putting the fear of God into the children. You teach someone how to treat you and it sounds like (and I may be off, I don’t know, I don’t live in your home and know everything)R’s backtalk isn’t properly nipped in the bud, the consequences are a joke to him, or he realizes he can play mom and dad which is why he feels he can talk to you any way he wants to. Oddly enough I’m going through the whole power thing with Ari. It’s a fine line between allowing her to express herself and nipping her antics and backtalk in the bud.
O has been doing pretty good in general, but he is crazily possessive of me and the baby around other people. He bit some kid at school because the kid had the nerve to look out the window at “MY MOMMY’S CAR!” in the parking lot. And yesterday at the grocery store he told some poor girl and her mom who had just noticed the cute baby that it was HIS BABY and they were not allowed to talk to her! Oy.
Gosh, Ros isn’t possessive of me at ALL. That is to say, I think he has some jealousy issues when it comes to how we divide our time, but if Em wasn’t here he probably wouldn’t care what I was doing. It’s like once he got past needing my body for food he could take or leave me. The *cat* is more possessive of me than he is. He does seem to value Scott’s time, though.
Zach is a Scorpio.
It gets better, though I feel all kinds of sympathy for having to go through both a new baby and a 3/some change kiddo. Zach as he is right now? Dude, I’d lose my mind.
He did throw a 15 hour—STRAIGHT—temper tantrum about 4 days after E came home. 15.Hours. By the law of physics he should have passed out in exhaustion.
as a scorpio older sibling, in general we are possessive of our parents but are also great in terms of getting along with younger siblings. we may not be happy about the initial change with the introduction of a new sibling but we get over it quickly and bond well. we just need to make our displeasure know first.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/13 at 04:31 PM
Big Brother.
I’ve been holding off on this post for a couple of days because I wanted to be as tactful as possible. I didn’t want to sit here and type out of frustration; I wanted to be as level-headed as allowable by my current hormonal state.
Answering the question “How is Rosco handling the new baby transition?” requires me to hold back on the sort of language I’d normally use. Because he’s 3. Actually, he’s actually closer to 4 than 3—he’ll be 4 in November.
Rosco is being a terror. Now, even before Em was born he was expressing his “three-ness” but now he’s escalated the behavior to something that’s sort of shocking. Fortunately, he hasn’t done anything to the baby directly, but has been taking a lot of…what’s the right word to use here…resentment?...out on Scott and me. He’s jealous and probably a little possessive. I learned this several weeks ago when his aunt sat on her mother’s (his nana’s) lap. He told his aunt, in no subtle terms, to get off his nana’s lap—that she couldn’t sit there.
I think what really annoys him is that his usual playmate, Scott, is occupied with other things right now (home improvement disasters and, of course, Baby). It’s not my habit to get down on the floor and play trains and cars with him—I leave that to Scott. Boy toys bore the life out of me. So, when Scott tells Rosco that he “can’t play right now” you better believe that within a few minutes Rosco will start acting out in some way. That may mean flogging you with his blanket (which gets taken away for the rest of the day), kicking and throwing toys, screaming, crying, and back-talk.
The back-talk is the worst part because it’s so odd to hear that kind of disrespect coming out of a child that young. It’s like he’s challenging the power structure in this house (he doesn’t realize that the decisions he’s allowed to make are because we allow him to make them).
He often won’t fulfill simple requests without threat of punishment. He makes small things difficult. He tries his damnedest to throw a monkey wrench into the routine, what little there is around here.
When we started confining him to his room the first act of retaliation was to piss himself. Now, this is a child who has been toilet-trained for close to a year. He takes himself to the bathroom. When Scott found him and asked why he did it Rosco responded “I dunno” and laughed. (Scott’s much kinder than me because my impulse would have been to give the kid a cold shower to clean it off.)
Next, he destroyed the blinds in his room. Scott’s going to replace them because they look really bad from the outside, but I think that’s probably unwise. Again, when Scott asked what he was thinking and why he broke the blinds Rosco responded “I dunno” and laughed.
The kid has absolutely no fear of consequences (other than being shut into his room, and when that happens he’ll bang and thrash on the door like a child possessed). He’s wild.
I dread Scott going back to work next week. Maybe things will be better when there aren’t two parents at home for him to play off each other. In the past Scott and I would argue (in front of Rosco) about whether or not I was being too much of a hard-ass instead of presenting some sort of united front. I think Scott sees now that I try to nip things in the bud early BECAUSE they escalate this way. He can’t always see what I see or know that I may have already dealt with a particular behavior (numerous times) while he was at work.
[Yes, I’d love to be a sweet, doting mommy for Rosco, but Rosco has sucked all the sweet right out of me as of late. There you go - that’s my weight-loss secret.]
What helps some at this point is having had other moms tell me that they have children who behaved similarly after they brought home newborns. I feel less like I (or we) did something wrong although it’s hard not to feel helpless when nothing you do is making the situation better.
I hope he just gets over it soon. Em is no threat to him. They’re far enough apart that they won’t share toys, and really it’s his schedule she’ll be a slave to for the next few years. He doesn’t even have to be a “good” big brother as long as he leaves her alone (unless there’s a fire or something, you know).
Oh well. On another note, next time I’ll talk about how the cloth diapering is going.
Posted by Tiffany on 07/09 at 02:57 PM
_______________________________________________________________I am sorry that this time has become somewhat “bittersweet” for you with Rosco’s behavior. So much of what you are describing I could have wrote. Little man will be 4 in October and I am seriously at my wits end with the back talk and non-compliance. I looked forward the whole school year to being a stay at home mom for the summer, only to feel like a complete failure! Anyway, didnt mean to make this about me. Stay strong and here’s hoping “its just a phase”
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/09 at 07:10 PM
***Congrats on the new baby. She looks beautiful.
I know this is a bit late but I’ve been away for a couple weeks.
Hopefully soon things will calm down and he’ll realize that she is there to stay and be better behaved.
Posted by Adi on 07/11 at 03:03 AM
***I recommend putting the fear of God into the children. You teach someone how to treat you and it sounds like (and I may be off, I don’t know, I don’t live in your home and know everything)R’s backtalk isn’t properly nipped in the bud, the consequences are a joke to him, or he realizes he can play mom and dad which is why he feels he can talk to you any way he wants to. Oddly enough I’m going through the whole power thing with Ari. It’s a fine line between allowing her to express herself and nipping her antics and backtalk in the bud.
Posted by tina on 07/11 at 06:13 PM
***O has been doing pretty good in general, but he is crazily possessive of me and the baby around other people. He bit some kid at school because the kid had the nerve to look out the window at “MY MOMMY’S CAR!” in the parking lot. And yesterday at the grocery store he told some poor girl and her mom who had just noticed the cute baby that it was HIS BABY and they were not allowed to talk to her! Oy.
Posted by Lisa on 07/12 at 06:49 AM
***Gosh, Ros isn’t possessive of me at ALL. That is to say, I think he has some jealousy issues when it comes to how we divide our time, but if Em wasn’t here he probably wouldn’t care what I was doing. It’s like once he got past needing my body for food he could take or leave me. The *cat* is more possessive of me than he is. He does seem to value Scott’s time, though.
He’d better take care of me in my old age…
:-\
Posted by Tiffany on 07/12 at 11:10 AM
***wow… i am SO glad you posted this.
my older boy is acting the same, yet he’s nearly 7. okay, he’s not peeing himself, but he’s inhumanly naughty… and cruel, honestly, to me.
i thought he’d come around, but his little brother has been here for 2 months,and still he acts like a SHIT.
gah!
p.s. the spam word below is “man69” ha ha, funny keyword programmer. :|
Posted by punch on 07/12 at 07:13 PM
***Makes me wonder if this is going to be a birth order issue…
On a slightly related note, I read somewhere that Scorpios make *horrible* older siblings. Wonder if the stars are at play. :-|
Posted by Tiffany on 07/13 at 01:22 PM
***Zach is a Scorpio.
It gets better, though I feel all kinds of sympathy for having to go through both a new baby and a 3/some change kiddo. Zach as he is right now? Dude, I’d lose my mind.
He did throw a 15 hour—STRAIGHT—temper tantrum about 4 days after E came home. 15.Hours. By the law of physics he should have passed out in exhaustion.
You didn’t do anything wrong.
Posted by Stephanie on 07/13 at 03:57 PM
***as a scorpio older sibling, in general we are possessive of our parents but are also great in terms of getting along with younger siblings. we may not be happy about the initial change with the introduction of a new sibling but we get over it quickly and bond well. we just need to make our displeasure know first.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/13 at 04:31 PM
***