Younger Brothers

Tyler is 12 right now, and has officially begun that pre-teen woe-is-me attitude that I am well aware will continue for the next 6 years. Okay, so it will probably last longer than 6 years, but at least he won't be living full time with us after that. No, really, he won't be. I've already explained to him that if he wants to be a pro-ball player he has to go to college, and everybody knows it is important to live in the dorms the first year or two of college.

Anyway, back to the attitude. During one of our many "discussions" with Tyler about chores he needs to do, or helping watch the babies (the 20 minute "discussions" where he whines about "why does he have to" and we say because I said so again & again & again), he said that he should get to stay up later than Cameron because he is older (just over 2 years older) and in 6th grade and when we had foster children that were in 6th grade they got to say up until 9. We thought about it and I told him if he could make it for the rest of the week without using that irritating, whiny, girl voice that I just can't stand, we would consider letting him stay up later. (Seriously, I'll have to record that voice sometime, I just can't do it justice trying to explain it) And he actually made it the rest of the week, so we bumped his bedtime back.

Now, our boys are somewhat spoiled and they each do have a TV in their room, which I am totally blaming on their grandpa, since he gave them their current TV's (I really see no relevance in the fact that I bought Tyler one when he was 4 so that he would stop sleeping in our bed). Our boys are also incredibly picky eaters. I'll have to use a whole separate post for that discussion! So for dinner, we've tried a million different ways to make them at least try it, nothing has worked. So finally, we decided that if they don't eat dinner, they lose the TV in their room for a week. This has totally worked for Cameron. It might take him an hour, but he will finally try dinner so that he doesn't lose the TV. For Tyler, it hasn't worked so well. I honestly don't know when he last had TV in his room, and I know it is gone for the rest of this month.

They really don't watch a lot of TV in their room, anyway, except they are allowed to watch 1/2 hour at bedtime, which means if bedtime is at 8:30, the TV goes off at 9. But if you lost your TV in your room, then if bedtime is at 9, you go to bed at 9, No TV. So, even though Tyler technically got his bedtime pushed back to 9, it's basically still the same time as Cameron, except that Cameron is watching TV for that half hour in his room while Tyler is in the family room.

So, here's the funny part. The other night I heard Tyler speaking sharply to Cameron saying, "Yeah, I know". So I asked him what the problem was. He said that every night at 9 when Cameron is turning off his TV, he comes out into the family room and says, "Tyler, it's 9, time for bed." Don't ya just love little brothers?! I really did try hard not to laugh at loud when he told me that!