So, I’m having a devil of a time with E (2 1/2) who picks up every bad (and good!) thing that O or J says and does. I’ve slacked off a lot more than I would like with O because I try and give him space to get himself out of situations on his own and with assistance and try not to focus on the peripheral. When he loses control, he really doesn’t know what he is doing. In those times, he uses words like, ‘shut up’ ‘stupid’. Great. He normally doesn’t use them in everyday context. Only when he can’t handle himself. Quite frankly, I’m doing what I said that I would never do…different rules for different kids! Yep, I’ve become a massive hypocrite!

E (aka Mr. SmartPants) picks up absolutely everything that O and his 13 year old brother, J say. And, because his wheels are churning at such a rate and in such the right direction for him, he uses everything in perfect context, perfect tone, and looks us right in the eye when uttering these words. Yep, told me, while looking me in the eye and squinted at me with the devil in his eye, ‘shut your face, Mom!’. Seriously, that was such a shocker. The first time. Now it’s become our new normal. Just lowering the bar, day by day, by day.

Oh, yes, we have tried the ignoring phase. Tried the ‘oh, lets use nicer words, pal’ phase. Tried the time out. Been thru my entire, well versed parenting repertoire and have come to the conclusion that I don’t know squat! Oh, I have recently gone hoarse on a day or two because of the ‘shouting’ phase. That, also, didn’t work. DARNIT!!!!! And, I did the lemon squirt bottle in the mouth phase. Of course, that morphed into the ‘shut your face, Mom!’ followed by an immediate ‘can I have lemon juice in my mouth now? It’s spicy, Mom!’ phase. Delightful! Not to mention the looks of people wondering why I am carrying around a lemon juice bottle with me.

I’ve googled and googled. But, what to google?  ‘discipline toddler who will not listen’ ‘how to discipline toddler of autistic older brother’ ‘how to discipline toddler of autistic brother and teenager brother’ ‘how to discipline toddler of 5 year old autistic OCD brother and teenager who thinks it’s hysterical to get a rise out of his parents by making his brothers say inappropriate things’. Okay…tried all of that…and I must say that I must scoff at the suggestions of what to do for our situation. ‘simply tell your child that you don’t like their words’, ‘ignore this behavior, it’ll go away’, etc, etc…

I’m thinking to get the tabasco out. Bad word = a little squirt O’tabasco. Is that really bad?!!! J said one bad word when he was 3. I washed his mouth out with soap. Never again. Situation over. Done. He also responded well to time out and saying, ‘No thank you!’.

I know that E is going to be extremely successful in whatever he decides to do and set his sight on, but he is sure a tough nugget to raise.

Over the weekend we went to Minneapolis to my sister’s wedding. The wedding was lovely. The city and all of the events of the wedding were marvelous. Yet, E elevated to a whole nuther level of cuckoo. I think that we enter situations carefully anticipating how O is going to do. What we can do to help him get through situations. What do we need? What GF foods do we need to prepare? What kind of situation is it? Who is going to be there? Are we going to have the right coverage for 1:1 attention for him. J had an awesome time because his cousins as well as my sister’s husband’s nephews, and their new cousins had a fantastic time together. E is the one that always catches me off guard. He is the one that I guess that I expect will go with the flow as he is boy #3. In my family, girl #3 was the most pleasant and always came along to everyone else’s events gladly and was always so easy to be around and take places. This is not what I expected. Everyone says that their 3rd child is always so chill and go with the flow. Hmmm….not quite seeing that yet. Maybe soon?

Can I just say that The Mall of America is a nutty place. Loved it and hated it all in the same breath of recirculated, temperature controlled air. Just to paint the picture for ya…we walk in and went immediately to the Nickelodeon Universe. Holy cow! In the middle of the mall is the LOUDEST, funnest, LOUDEST, craziest, LOUDEST place on earth. It was insane. The older kids had the most fab time ever. They got unlimited ride wrist bracelets and were gone, gone, gone…not even breaking for lunch. My sister took them smoothies to get them some nutrients, knowing that they weren’t going to sacrifice the time to sit down for a real meal. Good call! I looked at O thinking that he might be about to wig out, but for some odd reason, he was just bee bopping along, skipping to his own tune, enjoying life. E was in the stroller, screaming and yelling that he wanted to get out. Uggg…this mommy’s brain simply could not filter out all of the sounds. The layers of noise were too darned much. Finally, after a couple of hours of walking around the MoA, Peter took E back to the hotel to get him to sleep. Then I could focus on O. We had a great time after that.