Love him

I have been having a blast with the kids this summer.

I have to admit, as the school year was drawing to a close, I was starting to get a little nervous about how it was going to be to have Jack home all day every day.  The last spring break was the first one where I thought to myself, "This is what people mean when they say they can't wait for their kids to go back to school."  I normally love having him home, but he was being particularly ornery during that week off.

My kids generally get along pretty well, but Violet is getting to an age where she is starting to have and volubly state her own opinions.  I think that Jack often likes to tease her and rile her up just for the heck of it.  If she is playing with something, it is immediately irresistible to him and he has to have a turn RIGHT NOW.  It can be something as stupid as a plastic can of beans that he hasn't played with in years (yes, this was a recent object of contention).  If she is sitting somewhere, he has to sit nearly right on top of her and crowd her.  He'll randomly yell, "Boo!" right in her face.  Or say something obnoxious just to make her mad.  Or take a game too far and then not stop when she tells him to.  I've told him, "When someone asks you to stop, you need to stop.  If they don't look like they are having fun anymore, you need to stop."

I thank my lucky stars that he is not a little brother.  As it is, he does get a little bored teasing a three-year-old after awhile.  If she were older, I think whatever she was doing would be endlessly fascinating to him and the teasing, meddling, and instigating would be relentless.

Prior to the end of the school year, I told Jack, "This summer break is not going to be like the spring break.  I do not want you constantly picking quarrels with Violet.  I am going to be keeping track of every time you do things to purposely annoy her or make her mad,.  There is going to be a number where it's going to be too much - and I don't know what that is right now - but if you get to that number, I will send you to summer school."

This had an immediately sobering effect on Jack.  During the first week of the break, whenever he would start with Violet (usually in the car on our way somewhere), all I would have to say was, "Summer school!" and he would instantly stop.  It's been awesome how well it's worked.

(Obviously, it's very helpful that Jack really has no idea that "summer school," at least the way I was brought up understanding it to be, is not really an option for him.  I can't think of a single elementary school that offers it.  However, as I told my friends, if it really came down to it, I could find something suitably boring that would be a close enough approximation to the summer school that he dreads.)

In fact, Jack has almost rubberbanded to the other extreme.  He is constantly interested and involved when I have to discipline Violet.  We have been having a few, shall we say, defiance issues with our little girl lately, to my utter exasperation.  When I tell Violet, "You need to obey me when I tell you to do something," Jack will chime in after me, "Yeah, Violet!  Mommy is the boss!"  Every disciplinary directive I give her is echoed by Jack.  He even tries to discipline her on his own.  If she asks him for something and he gives it to her, he'll admonish her, "What do you say?"  Sometimes it's a bit much, but I do appreciate the reinforcements.

In addition, he has just been supremely cooperative and helpful overall.  In the mornings, he will play with Violet so that I can sleep in a little later.  Thankfully, he knows how to run the TV and DVD player.  It can often be a bit of a mad scramble to get out the door in time for whatever it is we have going on, and I will get super stressed.  When he sees me like this, he will ask me, "What can I do to help you?"

I've been really impressed by how he is able to delay his own gratification to help me out.  Violet constantly demands food, which I find intensely annoying.  I've told Jack that there are times when I'm in "meal-making mode," so those are the times he needs to tell me when he wants to eat.  Sometimes he says to me, "Mom, I'm kind of hungry, but I can wait until you're in food-making mode."  

As I mentioned, one of the downsides of the bunk beds is that Violet had been getting up earlier, because Jack would inadvertently wake her up.  And when Violet wakes up, it's usually not very long until I have to wake up, despite Jack's attempts to play with her and keep her occupied.  On the third day of the new arrangement, I was pleasantly surprised that the kids stayed in bed until after 8:00.  I didn't really think anything of it until Jack happened to mention that he had woken up at least half an hour earlier but he just stayed in his bed so he wouldn't wake his sister.

One of my favorite examples of his developing emotional maturity came on the Fourth of July.  We spent the day with the family of one of Jack's favorite friends, and we had so much fun.  The boys in this family are 6 and 3, the same ages as Jack and Violet.  All the kids were playing in the pool, and the older boy was teasing his little brother in much the same way that Jack was constantly teasing Violet not even a month ago.  The little brother was complaining and saying, "Stop!" but the big brother kept on doing it.  Jack told his friend, "He's saying stop."  I had to smother my smile when I heard that, but it's so gratifying to know that he is actually listening to what we tell him.

Here's hoping the rest of the summer continues just as smoothly, because we sure are having a lot of fun.