Tonight is my LONG AWAITED sleep study. We are playing in an RPG today so we are going to drop the second vehicle at the clinic on our way to game so I can go straight to the evaluation at the end of the game play and still get home in the morning.

Since no one felt overwhelmed with desire to babysit tomorrow we will have a restful day post-sleep study. That’s probably wiser anyway. We collapsed on each other on Thursday when Noah got home. Another day of doing that would be lovely.

EC and I processed almost everything they want to sell at the consignment sale last night. The sale isn’t till next month but I told her if she waits till the last minute I’m not helping and she has to do all the frantic rushed work alone. She elected to ask for help early. Clever girl. We had a lovely date together doing the work. Noah and FMC had a date of their own.

Our kids are hilarious about the way they talk about how there are DIFFERENT KINDS OF DATES. They are really emphatic that they do not go on ROMANTIC dates with us, just friendly ones. It makes me giggle. As if I need them to let me know not to have romantic feelings towards them when we are out. Ok darling. I promise to put my romantic feelings in a box when I’m with you. *cough*

FMC got more forking dolls for their birthday. Grandma’s box arrived. A boy and a girl. FMC has decided they are brother and sister so “No kissing or nothing because that’s not ok between siblings.”

This life they are living… it doesn’t resemble the world I grew up in.

I’m so glad.

We are having a lot more sibling rivalry and I need to read up on how the fuck to manage it. I have done a good job of teaching EC to be patient with younger kids and generous with her stuff. FMC is a tyrant and spends most of their time talking about how much better they are than the people around them. I’m feeling some feelings about this.

I hope FMC turns out to be a better big sibling than they are a younger sibling. They still hit a lot. They still call names whenever they are thwarted. This is all directed at their sister and no one else.

EC is not a god damn punching bag. The only thing that slows FMC down is when EC punches back.

I’m at the point where I say, “FMC isn’t a baby. If they hit you… don’t take it.”

I have no desire to encourage fighting. I have less desire to teach EC they need to accept being hit without response. Oh fuck that. We start with our words. But if someone won’t stop fucking hitting you… flatten them.

You do not owe anyone the acceptance and tolerance of pain. Fuck. That. Noise.

We are talking about it in family therapy. This has been a consistent pattern for a while but I feel like it’s escalating and I’m frustrated. I need more books.

I was the shithead baby. I don’t know what to do about this. I never hit my siblings (they were 5, 8, & 13 years older than me… if I tried I was flattened) much but I did spend a lot of time talking about how much smarter I was. Because I was.

I’m a judgey piece of shit and I’ll say it is less clear that FMC is head and shoulders smarter than EC. They might be. But it’s close. My siblings uhhhh…. well maybe they might have been smarter than me if they hadn’t all started abusing drugs and alcohol in junior high. I didn’t. I ended up with a better working brain.

*shrug*

But yeah. The competitive spirit is real. Real fucking frustrating.

Sigh.