" I am mad and very upset"

About four weeks ago I purchased a beautiful tower of assorted crayola Markers for Ethan my five year old. These are his, they are special and he does not have to share them with his younger brothers. I understand that having one brother mark up his body,losing the lids, and another eating his precious markers caused grief for him. So he has had his special ones that he does not have to share.

My three year old Eric (turning four this month) has had no interest in the basic preschool learning through play activities I offer. All of my kids by year ending two could write thier name and identify the letters of the alphabet. Even Ethan being deaf could sigh all of these things. But not Eric. Absolutely no interest whatsoever. He is the kind of kid who might take a pencil, notice the eraser and soon have the eraser off and using it as food for one of his stuffed pets.

On Tuesday I took Eric to Target to get him his very own special markers, pencils, and drawing pad. Mind you we have all these things availabe on a community shelf, but I thought if I made it something that he picks out, and treasure in a box it would peak his interest in school type play. Well this idea was a homerun. He methodically unpackaged all his stuff and neatly placed everything in his box. Carryed his box to the table and asked me to show him how to write his name. I did the dot-to-dot version that he could then trace and have immediate success. He then went on to draw a picture of himself. He holds the markers in a funny way, but I am not about to visit that. The kid is really getting into this.

Now this afternoon, both Ethan and Eric are at the table choosing to draw at the table during quiet time. Ethan is not having an easy time with Eric sporting all his new things. But they continue side by side chitting and chatting like boys do. I get a beautiful picture from Ethan of me. Eric is making train tracks with lots of teeth. Ethan very politely asks Eric if he could borrow his black marker. Eric politely says no. Just that, nothing more, just a no. Ethan is boiling over not being able to get his mitts on Eric's new markers. Ethan then goes into a drama of his need for the color black and how he can not find his in the mix of his fifty or so markers. We have a community box that has a perfectly good black marker which he is trying to convince me that it's a dark blue. I ask him to spell the color black for me. He spells it beautifully. I then ask him to spell the color printed on the side of the marker....B-L-A-C-K.....long pause..."I am mad and very upset".

I told Ethan than he has to accept Eric's "no". To which he says again..."I am mad and very upset". I said I understand, but you still need to accept Eric's no. He then tells me that the Bible says you should not say no to people. He then goes and gets this huge white Bible with large print and literally searches for the word no. He found the word no and that was the icing on his case. NOT.

He ended up throwing a fit and is quietly sitting on his bed until the big hand is on the 12. Which is basically a 20 minute time out.

I think it's so funny, although I would never crack a smile in moments like this, how thier little minds work. As a mommy, I just want to bust up laughing...and say something like "are you for real?". The reality is that we all have to learn and accept the important no's of life. I have had a saying, having worked in sales for many years...."my ears don't hear no"...but in life lessons these kinds of no's are important. Blessings