Chris and Dani are heading to Victoria tomorrow so most of the day was spent researching options and making reservations – for the ferry, for the hotel, for the dogs (see photo). It’s not a simple thing to travel in the middle of summer without some preplanning. They also discovered a problem with their travel trailer so they had to take it in for repair and leave it for a few days. The boys were a bit bored with all the things we were attending to, but I stopped Kaleb’s whining by giving him his science final. It took him a good three hours, but it seems he did well. I have no way to know, of course, because all he’s learned is beyond anything my brain can comprehend, but at least that class is nearly done. He still has his final report to write up, but that won’t take as long.
To counteract the boredom of hanging around the house all day, while Kory and Chris were solving all the world’s problems, Dani and I dropped the boys off in town so they could ride go-karts and play laser tag. I left them with some money to pay for a movie afterwards and they walked across the street to the mall to watch the 3-D version of “Toy Story 3.” It was against my better judgment to have them indoors so much on such a beautiful day, but our options were limited because of all the other things going on with our other house guests. It satisfied them both just fine and gave them a chance to do things as a team. I think Tobias was a bit worried about walking down the street in America, after all we’ve told him about child abduction, but I assured him it was safe if two kids were together. They survived and had a good time in the process.
Tonight Kaleb was showing obvious signs of sleep deprivation so I had him go to bed earlier than Tobias. Tobias wanted to stay up and watch a movie via Netflix over the Wii (high tech video-on-demand stuff). Kaleb did not like the inequality in that scenario and had a total meltdown over it. I kept my cool and tried to listen to what he was complaining about. It seems he thinks I’m “spoiling” Tobias and letting him have whatever he wants. I pointed out when he’s in Norway, he gets plenty spoiled and doesn’t have nearly the same restrictions on his use of electronics or movie watching when we are there. He failed to see the correlation. He then ranted and raved that Tobias has no restrictions whatsoever and I told him because Tobias is so well behaved, it’s a pleasure to reward that behavior. Kaleb responded with, “It’s all just an act. He’s not really THAT good.” I told him if he could “act” that good, he’d get more freedoms as well. Kaleb seemed shocked by that concept. I then told him to go brush his teeth, which he did immediately without me having to repeat myself (the norm). So, I’m seeing some light at the end of the tunnel here with Kaleb, as Tobias is setting such a good example of proper and polite behavior, the dots are finally getting connected in Kaleb’s head on what it means to behave. Whew. I also offered to pay him by the hour for any use of his Wii when he’s not present. That also helped erase some of the injustices in his mind.
I’m so thankful Kaleb gets to have a little taste of what it’s like to have a sibling. Now I just hope I get a little taste of what it’s like to have TWO well behaved children.
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