The proper way to handle whining kids

Dinner was rough tonight. It involved the usual whining and crabbing but this time it wasn't just coming from Joseph. Elle has started doing it too. I don't know if she's doing because she's copying Joseph or if she's doing it because she's two but she's started pulling the exact same stuff that Joseph does. I put a perfectly nice dinner down in front of them and right away they both start to whine and crab and push their plates away. "Augh! This is not what I wanted! I don't like this! Why did you make it like this!"

I thought back to all the great advice I got in comments, emails and phone calls after the last time I wrote about our dinner difficulties. After a little consideration I decided that the best way to deal with it was to ..... um, throw a temper tantrum. I slammed hand down on the table and yelled at them. I yelled at the kids for whining and I yelled at Jesse for yelling at the kids. Then I stormed up to my bedroom and pouted for a while. Then I went out to buy some tennis shoes.

I had a legitimate reason for going shoe shopping. I'm going to attempt climbing a rock wall tomorrow and I don't have the right kind of shoes. I've never climbed a rock wall before so I'm not sure how it will go. I predict that I'll get about two feet off the floor and then collapse to the ground in exhaustion. That will make my new shoes the biggest waste of money since the last time I bought a pair of tennis shoes in preparation for athletic activity.

But I digress.

I'm back home now and feeling a little better. Elle is asleep and Jesse is upstairs trying to get Joseph to sleep too. It doesn't sound like he's having too much success. They're starting to raise their voices at each other so I better get up there and separate them. Sigh.

(Just so we're clear here, we're not usually a yelly family. Everyone has their limits though and one too many nights of the same old crap kind of pushed me over the edge. I should be good again for another couple months now.)