Who is the mom here?

So, this is a typical therapeutic blog post for me-you're warned! No real warm-fuzzies here, and I really do love my kids. Honest.

This is a picture of my Eli, Mr. Incorrigible. We are having a very rough week together. From his bossiness (in part driven by his view that I too am bossy) to his recent lack of napping, his behavior this week is off the charts horrible for the most part. He purposely starts fights with Braedy by taking whatever it is Braedy wants (or runs to get there just before Braedy can finish reaching for it) and doesn't listen to anything I say the first time. His response (ALWAYS) is, "Why?".

I think I have pinpointed what the main problem is: things have been going so well lately (very few timeouts, very little need to reinforce rules) that I have gotten complacent and he has figured out that I don't always know what to do with him. I think he actually enjoys it when I look at him like, "what the heck did you just do that for?" and don't know what to do after that. So, it's time to bust out the Love and Logic and go hardcore on him, which is not going to be a pleasant experience for either one of us.

The end of my not-so-perfect day was so disgusting that I'm not going to describe it in too much detail. Let's just say it started with Eli going a bit of #2 in his pants (another recent phenomena; I think again his way of controlling things) and while I was scrambling to get him situated, Braedy went #2 in the bathtub. Then, when Eli found out about that, he kept jumping off the toilet mid-business, because he was terrified that I would let the bath water out and all of the toys would go down the drain (thank you Curious George for showing that was ever even possible). In the meantime, Utah, in its wonderous glory had a major problem on the interstate probably due to large potholes that have been forming since it's warming up so Brian was late. So, I became the mom I swore I'd never be: a mean, screaming one. It was not pretty.

But, everyone under age 4 is now in bed and we've all apologized to each other for yelling, so it's a start. Hey, there's green grass outside! We can only get better from here.