Shifting Gears, Shifting Attitudes.

I recently asked my son, if he could recall the time when he got really mad at me, marched up to his room, and instead of punching a pillow, he grabbed a pair of kid scissors and proceed to cut the front of his hair to the scalp. He was about six years old.  When I went to his room, it was obvious that something was different about his appearance. Of course I freaked out and said “What the heck happened to your hair???”

He proceeded to tell me that, “Mom it was an accident!!!!”
“How in the hell could you accidentally cut your hair?”
I couldn’t reason with him. I guess he thought that if he said it was an accident, perhaps there wouldn’t be any punishment. To complicate things more, his twin sister marches in the room to defend him.
“Yea, Mom, it was an accident!!!”
Yikes, how do I respond to that? 
“OK, let me get this straight, the scissors levitated out of the desk drawer and actually cut your hair and you had absolutely no control over it?”
“Yes, Mom, really I didn’t do it.”  “It was an accident.”
I couldn’t think of a punishment for an act like this, and it didn’t take long for him to realize that it was really not a very smart thing to do. He went to bed that night feeling bad about it, I figured that was enough punishment.

Now they are tweens, and being on the same team is forbidden. It’s more like, “YOU JERK!”
“Mom, she’s calling me a jerk, and I didn’t do anything!”
“Get OUT of my room!”

Yesterday, Dear Daughter told me it was national HUG day, and she wanted to give Little Dude a big hug. He flat out told her:

“I would rather get arrested and be thrown in jail!!” Should I be worried?

Sign on Dear Daughter’s Door.

Little Dude’s sign.

The good ole days.

The twins at battle.

My kids are actually not that much different with regard to behavior as my Smart Border Collie and The Black Dog.

“Alpha” dog, the one who dominates and leads the other members of the pack. The alpha is the boss who makes decisions for the entire pack. My kids exhibit the same behavior. If you recall, Dear Daughter was born first, so she pulls rank constantly, she is the ALPHA dog, child. I have a feeling when boys enter the picture in the future, brother and sister will team up to figure out the whole dating thing. Until then, their horns are locked in battle, so we’ll let nature take its course.