"How To Get Your Way", by Caleb

This little story will remind some of you of your childhood, I'm sure....

One of the funniest things about having more than one child is watching their little tiffs and little arguments, because they are often about extremely trivial things. For example, my two older children have been arguing for weeks over...get this...a green plastic cup. It's a children's drinking cup that came in a set from Ikea and I paid a whopping $1.99 for the set years ago. There are six colors in the set and normally, my kids don't care which color cup I give them. Two or three weeks ago, however, Caleb mentioned that green is his new favorite color, which meant that all of a sudden green was also Hannah's favorite color. Every day, at some point, I pull the green cup out with a cup of another color and instantly, both kids scream "The green cup is MINE!!! No, it's MINE!!!" I've even had to give the cup a "time-out" and have tried to avoid using that cup altogether because of their arguing. Today, I wasn't thinking, and pulled out a blue cup and "the" green cup at lunch time. Of course, both kids declared the green cup "theirs". Caleb seemed to have the upper-hand this time, unfortunately for Hannah. I was reminding both of the kids that it was Hannah's turn for the cup, because Caleb used it the night before, blah blah blah. All of a sudden, Caleb ran up to the cups, grabbed the green one and LICKED the inside of it!! I couldn't believe it! Hannah ended up winning in the end because I hand-washed the cup for her so she could use it. I guess I had better start keeping an eye on these kiddos since they're getting craftier by the day!!