Weekly Rantings and Ravings

I think this should be a weekly segment. God knows I'm always bitching about something... :)

1. Thing 2 will be FOUR in August. Yet he continues to pee himself on a semi-regular basis. Since he has gone as long as week at a time not wetting himself, I know this is pure LAZINESS. I've bribed, I've rewarded, I've taken away, I've time-outed and quite frankly, I'm tired of it. But as a parent I'm not allowed to say WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING??? I'M FREAKIN' TIRED OF WASHING 42 PAIRS OF UNDERWEAR EACH WEEK! Which is what I am thinking. Every time he pees his pants.

2. Aside from the fact that she threatens to disinherit me on a semi-weekly basis, my mother is a fairly intelligent woman. So will someone tell me why she refuses to trust direct deposit??? My mother spends a lot of time in Atlantic City these days perfecting her second career as a professional gambler. So when she's out of town she then expects me to deposit her paychecks for her. And when I forget...well, let's just say that I'm probably going to be disinherited again this week.

3. I have diagnosed Thing 1 with CFD. What's that, you ask? It stands for "Can't Follow Directions". We're not talking difficult directions either. Example - an hour ago I say to him, in preparation for bedtime, what I say to him every night. "Take off your shorts and put them in the hamper". And, like he does every night, he takes off his shorts and underwear and then looks puzzled when I indicate that he doesn't need to sleep commando style. So then he picks up the underwear, twirls them around, does a few random circles, until I finally yell "PUT THOSE ON". Which leads me to Rant item 4.

4. Why, Why, WHY do my children only take me seriously when I yell at them? I repeat myself constantly, all day long, and it pisses me off that I need to yell to get their attention. I love them, but honestly, WHY?

Bad Thing 2!

There's a problem in our household. A serious one, that I don't know how to solve.

Thing 2, previously known as my sweet, cuddly, angel boy, has changed. This is the child that if we went to the bank without his brother, would insist that we get a lollipop for him. He was thoughtful and loving. And he still is, at times.

But lately he has become a hitter. Not just a tap on the hand hitter either. Oh no, we're talking full on punches here, Mike Tyson style (thankfully he doesn't seem to have any need to bite anyone's ear off). In my mind I've started thinking of him as "Fists of Fury". He started whaling on his brother at a local sub shop the other day and although I was only about 2 feet away he got in 5 or 6 good, hard, hits. Not only is he physically aggressive, but he is so incredibly angry in those moments. This is not the child I have known for almost four years. I'm not sure who this is.

Now, on the positive side (what little positive side there is) he's not hitting anyone other than his brother. The teachers at preschool haven't seen any indication of this behavior. They still think he's a sweetie pie, and remain clueless about the Ali within. Also, to Thing 1's credit, he's not hitting his brother back.

On the incredibly frustratingly (yeah, I'm making words up here) negative side, neither my husband nor I have a clue as to a)where this anger and aggression are coming from and b)how to stop it. We've given timeouts, stopped and talked to him, explained to him that this is inappropriate, etc. etc. I'm really at a loss. I welcome any suggestions anyone who has seen/experienced this (particularly anyone willing to tell me this is just a phase :)