INgratitude

This is developmentally normal for children ages eight and eleven. Doesn't change the fact that it makes me want to strangle them.

The issue is simple; they are never satisfied. None of this is big stuff, just the automatic whine of, "but why can't I...?" with every single thing. None of our kids are ever going to go hungry, but you'd think we were deliberately starving them every time we refused them a third slice of cheese with their already enormous sandwich. It also goes hand-in-hand with the infamous it's-not-fair phenomenon. Tonight I made each child a snack-size zip-top bag of "trail mix" for a movie-time snack. Some cheezits, fruit snacks, cereal, pretzels in each bag (these are half the size of sandwich bags). Lizzy's still young enough that she doesn't notice differences in this sort of thing, but the other two, well...

First Abby's did not have enough pretzels. Then Leanna's didn't have enough fruit snacks. So I divvied them up more "fairly" and told them that the next argument I heard about the snacks would trigger me taking them away entirely. They think I'm mean. I think I'm keeping myself sane.

Maybe I need to pull out the mantra we used when they were Little Kids:

"You git what you git and you don't throw a fit".

Or maybe our other mantra - the one for grownups - is more appropriate here:

"Developmentally normal does not equal socially acceptable".