Sometimes the little guy can surprise you
Zevan’s been having some growing pains lately. He scratched one kid at school and hit another one.
He’s been a little turkey about being disciplined. The whole time he will smile, which frustrates me so much because it seems so smug. And I have to ask him to not smile while we are talking about what he did.
He’s been kind of clingy, thankfully he’s sharing this clinginess with Dad, and not just me.
He’s definitely in a phase where he wants things to be his way or the highway, and isn’t very amenable to compromise. Frankly, he’s very selfish.
He’s 2 weeks away from turning 5, so I’m sure this part of the every 6 month development upheaval.
So, tonight, we’re making pizzas for dinner and we were discussing toppings…
Zevan: Do you have any mushrooms?
Dad: *You* want mushrooms?
Zevan: No, no, no. Not for me. Do you have any mushrooms for Zander’s pizza? He likes mushrooms.
Not so selfish 
The whole selfish/unselfish dichotomy keeps you on your toes. Every time I figure James is just an annoying jerky big brother he turns around and does something really nice for Daniel. And he is super good with Emily. It helps that I am the youngest brother while Kim is the middle child, so our sympathies rarely go with James first, which offsets the fact that he is the oldest and gets to do so much more.
Remind me tomorrow and I will loan you a great book on discipline with younger kids. We don’t follow it to the letter but we try to follow the general ideas.
It is an interesting experience. I’m the oldest child, and Doug is the youngest, so we each have a perspective of one child.
I would love to hear about the discipline book. Two of my favorites for the younger kids are Setting Limits with Your Strong Willed Child by Robert Mackenzie and Love and Logic. We took what worked for us from each and it was a good blend. I have a copy of Siblings without Rivalry that would probably be more relevant now that they are both school age.