tonight sister #2 and the stink are at the guthrie, leaving me to wrangle the children. it’s not been a good night. princess jaycie had a double helping of grumpy. she walked in crying and hasn’t seemed to stop. she just had a meltdown because max wanted to watch unwrapped on the food network and she wanted to watch another episode of the simpsons.

i told them that it looked like we had a problem and would have to come to a compromise.

“i know,” jaycie said. “we can do rock paper scissors.”
“okay,” i said.

we did it and i came up paper. she came up rock.

then the fireworks started.

“THAT’S NOT FAIR,” she screamed, and the tears started.
“i’m sorry Jaycie, but you chose.”
“i know, let’s flip a coin,” she said. “that’s more fair.”
“no, you said rock paper scissors, now max gets to watch unwrapped.”

then she flopped to ground sobbing.

“what’s the matter?”
“MAX SMILED A MEAN SMILE AT ME!”
“max, don’t tease your sister,” i said.
“and three days ago he pushed me off the table and my leg still hurts,” she said, still crying.
“okay,” i said. “you need to calm down.”
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO,” she shouted and started to stomp up the stairs.
“jaycie. stop right there.” i said in my stern grownup voice.
“what?”
“turn around and sit down, right there. you’re on a time out.”

god, i hate doing that. but now she’s off the time out and seems to have returned to normal.