Annoying Conversation #822

Okay, so there was a short span of time between annoying conversations but all good things come to an end, I guess.

So tonight we're all just hanging around the house - Michael's in his room playing the X-Box while Frank, Nick and I are in the living room just talking. I remind Frank that Michael needs to shower. This is a big "to-do" in our house because it is yet another thing that Michael does not care about and tends to pitch a fit when asked to take one. So we call him in to the room, let him know what is expected, joke with him for a minute and Frank tells him he's got 15 minutes to finish up his game before he has to get in the shower.

The teenager looks at us as if we had just handed the child a shot of Tequila and sent him on his way. So we're like "What?" He sits up a little straighter and was like "When I was a kid, I NEVER got 15 minutes before I had to do something! I had to do everything RIGHT NOW! You never make him do anything right away."

OY!!

The next few minutes are spent yelling, I mean EXPLAINING (loudly) that A.) It is so not cool to be this petty, B.) It is also ridiculous to be jealous of your nine year old brother, and C.) Um...You are TWO different people, not the same, but DIFFERENT. Deal with it!!

It seems like such a simple concept, right? There are TWO children, not one. We are dealing with TWO very distinct personalities that do not resemble each other at all. Each situation is completely different from one another. He tried telling us that we used to take the video game away from him for a month at a time and we did it TEN TIMES (of this he was most emphatic) by the time he was nine. This is quite hysterical to me because I don't think we even GOT a game system until he was eight. In order for us to punish him this often, he would have been without the game for about 10 months out of the year! You also have to understand that the times that he actually DID get the game taken away it was because he became obsessive about the game and could not live in the real world with the three-dimensional people!

I just did Nick's high school transcripts for him today (remember, we homeschool him) and he's got a GPA of 3.27, so he's not stupid. He IS, however, petty and jealous of his younger brother. It all goes back to him not forgiving us for not letting him stay an only child. Sorry, dude, your brother is NOT going back! I could see if they were closer in age, but this kind of nonsense is just...well, it's nonsense. You cannot punish two different people the exact same way. No two offenses committed by two different people are exactly the same. I am unsure how to get this point across to him but it's just yet another fun-filled, happy day in our house.

Fun freakin times...