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Monday, September 04, 2006

invasion of the brothers

Little Boy insists that he has brothers. If you ever wondered if children really do have imaginary friends, wonder no more, because Little Boy has three real live imaginary friends. They live in a striped monster truck in the mountains. They have red hair and red eyes. They are big kids. "You know mom, 6 year olds." Their names? Little Boy never tells me out loud, but writes them down. Sometimes their names are AWNTYNOPA and other times it's more like GHCDHOEGYAHIODTY. I think they're from a lost tribe in South America.

I normally encourage such creativity, but Little Boy's brothers are becoming a nuisance. Apparently, their mom lets them do and have whatever they want and they a bad influence on Little Boy. I don't know how my 4-year-old learned to be passive aggressive, but he uses his brothers to be just that.

Me: Don't jump on the couches, please.
Little Boy: My brothers can jump on their couches.

Me: Eat your green beans, please.
Little Boy: My brothers don't have to eat their green beans.

You get the idea.

When Little Boy started his Brother-Style-Arguing on other adults (my awesome friend Emily who was babysitting for me), well, that was just embarrassing.

Emily: Don't lean back in your chair, please.
Little Boy: My brothers can lean back their chairs.
Emily: Well, you can't because the chair could fall and you could get hurt.
Little Boy: My brothers have really cool chairs that don't fall over so they can lean back in their chairs.

When the Brother-Technique fails to work, he moves on to other tactics:

Me: You need a haircut.
Little Boy: I don't want a haircut!
Me: Well, you have to have one. Your hair is getting way too long.
Little Boy: My brothers don't have to have haircuts.
Me: I don't care what your brothers don't have to do. You are my little boy and you have to have a hair cut.
Little Boy: Well I don't want to be a boy anymore. I want to be a girl.

Perhaps the Brothers are the least of my concerns.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Lol!!! Little boy is so cute. I just adore him. I cracked up the day he told me about his brothers and the blackberries!

Maybe you need to have a talk with the brothers and tell them that they need to be more polite with the furniture, eat their veggies and that being a boy is AWESOME!!! Perhaps then they will tell Little boy to do good things?

Good luck!

beth said...

Wow, creating an alter-ego for the sake of problem solving - pretty creative. Maybe you need to have some imaginary "Mommy friends" who inform you of what really goes on in that house in the striped monster truck.

Anonymous said...

How funny. A mom must not love her boys if she lets them live in a striped monster truck in the mountains, jump on the couches, not eat their veggies, and lean back in their chairs . (No offense if any of your readers happen to be a mom like that.)

sheri said...

ROFL!!!!!
He is so freakin hilarious!!!!

Char @ Crap I've Made said...

So cute!

Jenn said...

Adorable! Tell him he has to sit flat on the floor until he can get himself one of those special chairs. :P Kids are hillarious.

Anonymous said...

I love Little Boy. Especially when he talks about his brothers.

Jamie said...

Your stories about Little Boy crack me up so much.
Between this and his wanting to decorate the table and plan parties you might be right about having bigger concerns! So funny, loved it!!

Nicole said...

LOL! What a cute little guy. And I think I am with Beth, maybe you need to run into the brother's mom at the grocery store so that she can tell you what is really going on out in the striped monster truck.

Lee said...

ROFLMBO! Seriously that is hilarious!!

momofalltrades said...

I wonder what it is about red eyes and imaginary friends. Most kids that have told me about their imaginary friends, the friends have red eyes. Weird. I love that he's trying to use them to reason with you. How fun!

Missy said...

LOL! That last part made me almost spit my milk out!!! And I am not laughing at you but with you. My little boy, has also decided that being a girl is very convienent for things like hair cuts too!

Anonymous said...

Nice. Laylee has an imaginary sister who gets to do all kinds of fun things. She goes to Mexico and drinks soda a lot.