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| Photo Courtesy of George Hodan |
I am literally beside myself at the moment. I have two testosterone carriers – one 13 and one 10. While at one time they may have been in the same mindset on the toys that they wanted, the games that they played, the music that they listened to, over the past 18 months; however, their likes and dislikes have changed. Each are developing into their own little beings with their own unique personalities and likes and dislikes.
Except for the 10 year old. He seems to think that he is ‘forgotten’ and ‘ignored’ and ‘never gets anything good.’ That couldn’t be farther from the truth … as a matter of fact, being the youngest, he’s actually the one who gets spoiled more than anyone – not that there is an abundance of spoiling going on around here that’s for sure.
Except for the 10 year old. He seems to think that he is ‘forgotten’ and ‘ignored’ and ‘never gets anything good.’ That couldn’t be farther from the truth … as a matter of fact, being the youngest, he’s actually the one who gets spoiled more than anyone – not that there is an abundance of spoiling going on around here that’s for sure.
Today, however, just worked my last nerve. He’s been home sick for three out of five days this week with a horrible cold. I think that today, knowing that he was off punishment but couldn’t go outside because of the cold, just put him in a REALLY bad mood (but I know that’s probably just wishful thinking on my part) and made him more irritable than normal.
First, he started in with the complaints about not being able to have XBox Live like the 13 year old. Well, the 13 year old has been playing XBox for 2 years now, has more experience, and has to earn the privilege of having XBox Live by doing chores. It isn’t just ‘handed’ to him (as the 10 year old seems to think). If the 13 year old screws up, his XBox Live is taken away from him until he is off punishment. So I set up an XBox Live account for him and went to set up his XBox for him so he could at least get online and watch videos and such. His XBox 360 does not have wireless connection capabilities. So The Man Thing would need to run a phone line from the modem to his XBox. Doing that will add one more item to our already pushed-to-the-limit capacities. When the 10 year old is on his computer playing Minecraft or watching videos, the 13 year old is on his XBox, I’m on my computer or tablet, and The Man Thing attempts to watch Netflix? We ALL get dumped, or the speed slows to a crawl, or one or more of us freeze up. (Gotta love Verizon for not offering FIOS in our area yet)
So I told him to just wait till I could get a wireless adapter for his XBox (which costs about $55 used and will take awhile to get) and he’d have to be content with playing with the 13 year old when he was online for the moment.
Yeah, that went over really well.
Then he overheard me talking on the phone about the concert I am taking the 13 year old to on Sunday, and naturally, he wanted to go. The 13 year old made it perfectly clear that he was not wanted – it was just me and him at which point the 10 year old was about to go postal. I very gently explained to the 10 year old that:
- He was not old enough to go to the venue (which is a little white lie…but HE didn’t know that);
- That this was a gift for the 13 year old for pulling his grades up and doing so well;
- That I would take him to an event as well – just the two of us – when it was something he wanted to do.
Um, yeah. He didn’t give a rat’s butt. He was still pissed.
Then there was the iPod meltdown. The icing on the cake if you will. The 13 year old has an iPod Touch that a friend gave him. It’s mangled and beat up, the face is cracked in the corner and there is a piece missing from the top – but it still works, and he absolutely loves it. So naturally, since I have a (regular) iPod, the 10 year old wanted to know if he could have that since the 13 year old has the iPod Touch. Well, I told him, The Man Thing sort of already “laid claim” to it because he wanted to put on a bunch of his oldies music he likes and be able to listen to it in the car because the radio stations play all this ‘new fangled junk’ and ‘don’t know what good music is anymore.’
I thought the 10 year old would sprout horns and start spitting fire from the look on his face.
After the rant that ensued for about 10 minutes, and the banging and slamming of things in his room, and then the silent treatment for about 20 minutes, he finally got back to his usual self.
Unfortunately, I’ve learned a valuable lesson. While they may not be twins – from now on, whatever I do for one I must do for the other, or deal with the consequences. A 10 year old with horns who spits fire from his mouth.
