Monday, October 10, 2011

Who kicked me?

The other day we were at a restaurant. We were sitting in a booth. Gabe was seated across from me. He got up to get more salad. When he came back he ever so lightly bumped my foot as he got in.
"Hey, why did you kick me?" he demanded.
"I didn't kick you. My foot was still." I said.
"I'm telling Dad. She kicked me!," Gabe says to Dirk. In all of his moving around Gabe bumps my foot again. "She just kicked me again!" he exclaims.
"I have not moved my foot," I said. "You are moving around and have just barely bumped my foot. I wouldn't even say anything about it except you are making up stuff about me."
"She kicked me, " Gabe continued. He said it several times. "Arrest her."
"Listen, " Dirk said. "You have to know the difference between being kicked and a light bump. No one kicked you. You bumped her." This conversation cycles through a few more times before Gabe gives up his accusations and eats.
We go through these types of conversations daily. On a really good once in a blue moon day, we manage to get by without one of these types of conversations. Most days have a few of them. Really bad days, the nonsense will go off and on for hours. Sometimes the accusations come out of thin air. Nothing has happened, Gabe is just accusing. He can be so cute and sweet one minute and then suddenly very argumentative the next minute.
After Gabe calmed down about the foot incident, he just kept looking out of the window and giggling. There seemed to be nothing in particular out there. Whatever it was, he found it funny. He was so cute about it.
However, on the way out of the restaurant, Gabe announces that Angel can't ride with us. "There's just no room."
"I bought this van. It is mine. I like to share my van. Because I am sharing, there is lots of room for Angel." I wanted to model sharing for Gabe. He still whines if anyone touches his stuff. He can also be very grabby and quickly claims anything that he sees that he likes. We have heard way too many selfish "MINE" incidents. I have made a conscious decision to verbally share.

No comments:

Post a Comment