The forgotten child

In an attempt to help Cameron not feel neglected and loose his spot of “baby” in the house I have been giving Cameron a lot of attention (and of course Brandon) and so Matthew has been having a hard time. It took me until this morning to be sure of the reason, but it definitely helps explain Matthew’s recent behavior. Matthew has been more grumpy, whiney, and less obedient lately. I had just figured it was due to lack of sleep with daylight savings/an irregular schedule. But last night he was “sick.” Shortly after we put Matthew and Cameron down for bed Matthew started yelling that he was sick and that he needed a bowl and his tummy hurt. What do you do? Give him the benefit of the doubt because no one wants to clean up a mess. So I gave him a bowl and let him out of bed to sit on the toilet. Because Matthew got to get out of bed, Cameron too said he had to go to the bathroom so we took him as well. After putting both boys back in bed, Matthew had another screaming fit where he said he needed to use the bathroom again. He is pretty convincing, so I let him out. This time I made him sit on the toilet for five minutes with the hope that it would be the last time. Well, I think I ended up taking him to the bathroom four times and each time he either got a little poop out or passed gas. He insisted on keeping his “throw up bowl” with him the whole time and he held it under his chin. After the fourth time taking him out of his bed we had just about had it. Well, now he insisted that he was too scared to go to bed all by himself, that Cameron wasn’t big enough to save him and that the fire alarm light was scary. He wanted to stay up and be held or have us sleep in his room. Somehow we ended up convincing him that if he would be quiet and stop crying/yelling we would leave his bedroom door open a crack. (In a big house, this would be no big deal, but in a small apartment it can be more of a challenge, so Scott and I decided to watch a movie in our room on the laptop with the hopes they would settle down and go to sleep.) Well, they finally went to sleep and Matthew never threw up.

First thing in the morning Matthew was acting “sick” again. He held his throw up bowl right by his face and was acting super whiney. You see, this is where Matthew slipped up. In the past when Matthew has been sick, he asks for a bowl, but he doesn’t want to hold it really close to his face because he thinks it might make him throw up. He likes having a bowl in the room as back up, but if I insist on holding it under his chin he gets mad. So the fact that he was holding it under his chin and making a really big deal about it (yet never once throwing up), convinced me it was all for show. So I decided to give him lots of attention, I carried him, cuddled him, played with him, I even held him on my lap while feeding him a bowl of cereal, and you better believe he forgot all about his “throw up bowl” or even that he was “sick.”

So there you have it from my smart three-year-old. When you want attention and being “bad” doesn’t work, pretend you’re “sick” and you’ll get all sorts of attention/cuddle time.