When 4 isn’t fun

It’s begun to feel a bit like war has broken out between myself and my 4 year old.

Whereas I thought the hardest part of my summer would be having my 6 year old home from school, turns out, it’s my 4 year old being a giant pain in the ass. (Look, this blog is my safe space, and sometimes kids are assholes. It doesn’t mean I don’t love them.)

I think he has learned a lot of bad behavior from my 6 year old. And, where we’re working to address my 6 year olds behavior…it’s not quite working the same way with my quite literally feral, wild child of a 4 year old.

The waking up at 4am has escalated once again. It was actually better for a while. I thought we were past it. But the past week, he promptly wakes up at 4am and turns the light on in his room, which wakes up my 6 year old. Then I have to go in there, yell at them (quietly) and threaten them with whatever creative thing I can think of that if they wake up the baby (which they have 2 nights in a row now)…it would be a big problem.

After another night of waking up at 4am and not being able to go back to sleep, I told my husband that I am done today. He’s going to deal with them, I want no part of it. My 4 year old decided he “didn’t like how I was treating him this morning”, so he told me he was going to break my bones and throw away my pillow.

It was then that I smiled, looked at my husband, and said I’m going to drink my coffee now.

So, it seems that the kids have teamed up and are now collectively being assholes towards me. They’re trying to get a reaction out of me, and they won’t get one.

I’ve been shit on my whole life by people who are supposed to love you, specifically my sister, who is the first source of all of my childhood trauma.

I’ve learned how to not react when people clearly want a reaction.

4 is not a fun age. And it’s an even less fun age when they learn bad behavior from an older sibling. And it’s even less fun when said 4 year old is CLEARLY overtired, from obviously not getting enough sleep.

So, yeah. That’s my Sunday! The kids have declared war, I’m removing myself from their toxic little plot, and my bones will remain unbroken today.

Parenting. It sure is fun sometimes.