A Toddler, a Preschooler and a Petulant Teenager!

With the current living arrangement due to the Big Guy’s career, we decided that I needed some help around the house with the girls. Luckily for us, I happen to know of a super, terrific Joe Jonas look alike ( according to my daughters and to their great enjoyment) a little brother who is a great help, when he chooses to be. The alternative was me a toddler, a preschooler, and a petulant teenager.

A couple of weeks ago my little brother came and helped enormously. It was priceless, the assistance that he gave. He was patient, understanding, funny, sweet, pliable, did I mention PATIENT. I mean way more patient than I think I am, at times, and I’m the Mommy. He’s one of those rare finds, that loves kids and just lets them jump, pull and hang all over him. Needless, to say I was impressed & was looking forward to an encore performance from my little brother.

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Last Wednesday, I picked him up and he escorted us downtown to a meeting for the girls at a modeling agency. He was very helpful and I couldn’t have managed without his help. Well, I could have but it would have been a much more difficult task.

But by Friday, my little Manny (Male + Nanny) apparently had enough and was evolving into a petulant teenager. He is, in fact, still a teenager. It started with my 5-year-old adamantly refusing to eat her apple sauce ( seems lately they refuse to do anything  I actually want them to do). After about 10 minutes of her and

I going back and forth, the Manny looks her dead in her little blue eyes and says, “Eat it or I’ll throw it in your face!”

WTF???? Excuse me, crazy..if anyone is going to throw anything in anyone’s face…It’ll be me and until I reach that moment of complete insanity, it’s not going to happen.

“Excuse me? Don’t say that to my girls!”

Him: “I was just kidding.”

He wasn’t and if he thinks I am stupid enough to believe that well, then let’s say my little brother’s opinion of my intelligence must be pretty low! My five-year-old was in shock, and I think a little scared but mostly she just ignored it and filed his comment away for some future therapy session.

Come to think of it, this complete breakdown may have started on Wednesday when my 2-year-old refused to carry her own apple juice. The doting manny (fabulous uncle) put it in his coat pocket, only to find out that as he was walking around downtown Chicago he was leaving a trail of apple juice that was seeping through his new Pea coat’s pockets. What to do?

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Now, instead of having help, I have a toddler, a preschooler, and a petulant teenager. Not fair! I want my sweet, helpful manny back. Do boys get PMS? Maybe that’s it. All I know is that the only way to deal with a toddler, a preschooler, and a petulant teenager is to take into consideration each of their ages and treat them each accordingly.  My brother has been so helpful, it’s easy to assume he’s an adult but at the end of the day, he’s still just a giant child and that’s bad on me. The key to having 3 kids at three very different stages in their childhood is to treat them all as individuals; little people with feelings and hopes and dreams of their own.

Hopefully, he will wake up today and it will have passed. No matter what, look at how my girls love him! That’s gotta count for something.

A toddler, a preschooler, and a petulant teenager