Don't get me wrong, I love the little goose to no end. He makes me smile multiple times a day. I often find myself even laughing out loud at his antics, even when I maybe shouldn't. After all if I didn't laugh, I might cry. Actually, sometimes I do cry; sometimes I'm crying because I'm crying because I'm laughing so hard, and sometimes I'm crying first and then laughing.
I think Michael and I are able to laugh about it more than others might because we are both middle children ourselves. We know what it can feel to sometimes feel like you are lost in the middle with an older sibling who knows more and is allowed to do more and a younger sibling who is inevitably the family's baby in every way. That internal struggle with striving to be older and wiser on one hand, but wanting the attention and coddling of the baby on the other and feeling either way, it doesn't matter because you're always just the one in the middle.
To help illustrate this point let me share with you a few of his attention seeking antics in a 24 hour window...
It began in the morning when Rob decided he needed breakfast and he needed it now!!! This isn't exactly out of the ordinary for Rob. I asked him what he wanted and he choose toast. So I made toast. And he ate toast right? Wrong. He decided he didn't really want toast he wanted something else. Too bad. You picked toast, you got toast. Eat it. Screaming, stomping and a whole fit resulted. I shrugged my shoulders and continued on with my day figuring if he's hungry enough, he'll eat it.
The toast became cold and Rob became hungry. He made his way back to the table and a whole new tantrum erupted when he discovered his toast had not been kept warm for him. His demanding that I warm it up RIGHT NOW of course only resulting in my taking my time to make my way back to the kitchen. In the meantime, Rob grew impatient and decided he could resolve the situation in his own way. Michael entered the kitchen to the smell of something burning in the microwave. When he pulled the now badly burnt toast from the microwave, he saw it still had 7 minutes left in the display. Thank goodness he pulled it when he did! I can only imagine what horrific things might have happened if it continued charring the toast. As it was, our house smelt like burnt toast for days!!!
Due to the unpleasant aroma that filled our house, we made a family outing to a local retail store looking for a deodorizing product among some other household necessities. As we stopped to look at lawn furniture Rob yells out, "I need to pee now! Didn't you hear me? I said my penis is ready to pee!!!"
And when I say yell, I mean yell, volume all the way up. Even though we were at the back of the store, I'm sure some kind little old woman at the front stopped to raise her eyebrows at Rob's outburst.
The day continued and so did Rob, melting over this and that and us trying to muddle through it, making it to bedtime. Ah, sweet, sweet bedtime. Well, at least once you manage to wrangle all the little munchkins into their pj's and hog-tie them to their beds. It seems though, that someone almost always manages to wriggle free and find their way down to our room for one reason or another. Tonight, it was Rob.
"I don't want to go to bed. I'm not tired."
"Too bad. It's bedtime. Go to bed."
"No. I don't want to."
"Robert. It's bedtime. Now."
"No."
I got up off my bed to steer him back down the hall to his own.
"But I have to pee."
"Okay, then go to the bathroom and go to bed."
"But I'm peeing right now!!" Rob declared as he glanced down towards the floor beneath him.
My glance dropped too and sure enough, there was a puddle forming under him.
"Robert! Then stop! You are old enough to know better! Stop peeing and go finish on the toilet!"
After getting him to the bathroom, mopping up the floor and getting Rob cleaned up and in clean pajama's, I tucked him back into bed and went back to my bedroom confident we were done with the boys till the morning.
My confidence was shattered a few minutes later when I heard Rob's distinctive footsteps making their way back down the hall toward the master bedroom.
"Mom, I have an owie. I need a band-aid."
Ray had managed to get quite a scrape on his side climbing a tree earlier in the day. In order to make him more comfortable and protect it while he slept, I put a gauze pad on it and held that in place with roll of self-cling wrap. This apparently left Rob feeling left out. He came hobbling into our room because he had an owie that needed to be wrapped. Hmmmm.... Where exactly is this owie? When asked Rob, pointed to a his foot. Easy enough. I tied a bandana around his seemingly fine foot and sent him back to bed.
"Mom, I have another owie too."
Sigh. Really? I was tired. Physically and emotionally. I knew I had a choice to make. Rob needed attention. I could give it him in the form of yelling or in the form of a few kisses for boo-boo's and bandanas. I laid my bandana collection out on the bed and said, "Okay Rob. These are all the bandanas I have. Where are your owes?"
He pointed. I kissed and tied bandanas. As he scooted down the hall, I smiled at the sight of him with bandanas knotted in various locations on his body. "Hey Rob. Let's go downstairs real quick."
This was one of those moments I wanted to be able to remind myself of years from now. "Say cheese buddy. No wait. Show me your best pout face! That's it!"
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