Kiss and Tell

My kids spend a good deal of time antagonizing, annoying and abusing each other, and at least as much time telling me about it.  I have been trying to teach them which things they should be telling me and which things are just obnoxious tattling that I just don't need to know, but they have a hard time differentiating.

Need to know:

"Moooooom......

...Isaak is playing with the candle lighter!"

...the twins are pouring honey all over the floor, adding oatmeal and rolling in it!"

...Alexandra is throwing eggs at her window!"

Don't need to know:

"Mooooom.....

...Alexandra is dancing!"

...Alexandra is singing girly songs!"

...Alexandra is sitting near me!"


These are all from Sebastian, who pretty much finds the existence of his sister to be a grave annoyance - unless they are playing the "puppy game", in which case they get along very well.

...Sebastian is making stupid faces at me!"


...Isaak is telling on me!"

...Sebastian won't follow the rules of the game that I made up!"


By far, the most horrendous and unforgivable offense that one of my children can perpetrate on another is to kiss them.  This is probably the offense that gets the least satisfactory response from mom upon tattling.  I get that one is kissing the other for the sole purpose of irritating them, but I just have a hard time taking it seriously.  Some of my most common responses to "Moooom, so-and-so kissed me," are:

"Awww, how sweet!  He/she must really love you!"

"What?!  That's terrible!  How dare he/she do something so awful!  Are you going to need a bandaid?"

"Was it like.....THIS?!"  *Mom proceeds to smother tattler with kisses.*

These responses generally result in the child stomping off grumbling, vowing to kiss the kisser back at all costs, which starts the cycle over again. 

Kissing aside, I'd like my kids to learn self-directed conflict resolution.  I try to explain to them that they can't control anyone but themselves.  If they have a problem with a sibling's actions, faces, breathing patterns, etc., the onus is on them to walk away, ignore, get over it, etc.  Except I've never used the word "onus" with the children.  Perhaps I will add that to their next vocabulary list. 

Speaking of crimes against each other, the twins are by far the most brutal when it comes to their attacks on one another.  They bite, kick and punch without mercy.  It really is quite distressing to see my little three-year-olds with bite marks and bruises all over.  From what I understand, it's a fairly common twin thing though.  Last night, Dominic came to me looking like this:

He was delighted, by the way.  He announced proudly, "Dante made me bleed!"  He insisted on looking in the mirror before we cleaned him up, and so, like any good mother, I took a picture so we could immortalize the happy occasion.  Dante was jealous of course, so he tried hitting himself in the face a few times in order to qualify for a photo op, but no such luck.

I took a picture anyway, just to be fair.  It was blurry though, so I'll post this one instead:

I can't think of a good conclusion for this post, so....The End.