Happy Birthday Blues

by Carlos

I think I see a trend, and I don't like it.

My eldest daughter Damai, has these delusions of grandeur. I can hear her tell her sisters in her best royal queen voice, "Follow me sisters! I will lead you! I was the first in mamma's tummy!" I'm to blame. I told them stories about their births; all the nice stuff, but Damai blows it out of proportion.

Anyway, I think it got worse as her birthday was nearing. I thought it would be really fun to build the suspense of her birthday by telling her way in advance that it was coming. In fact, the girls are learning time and months according to everyone's birthday. But as her birthday was nearing, I saw that Damai was acting up more. She started testing her boundaries a lot even though the boundaries were set! It's like she wanted to break through the rules with sheer force and repetitive infractures. That month, her and the corner got to really know each other. I remember telling her that I would not hesitate to punish her on her birthday. It's like she thought '5 years old' was some graduation from rules. Five!? Can you believe it? At what age did we learn that the older we get, the more rules we get placed on us?

Anyway, it happened with Lani last month, too. And to some extent, she's still acting up. My sweet little three year old has been poking and annoying the heck out of her sisters ever since she turned four. She doesn't like that her time out time has gone from 3 minutes to 4 minutes.

But now that Anna's birthday is coming up, I finally see the pattern. In a way, it's good. I'm having to learn to stand my ground, and she's learning exactly the way I want her to complete her time outs. Within the next 2 - 3 weeks, I expect that she'll be an expert at time outs!

It's a good thing that all their birthdays are so close to each other. By the time school starts again hopefully, they'll be nice and humbled again. So, grab your birthday hats and pinata sticks; it's time for the warden to lay down the law this summer.