Welcome to My World, Babe.

A study was recently published that found first born children are smarter than their latter born siblings. Since I am a firstborn, I wholeheartedly embrace the study’s conclusions. The study also concluded that the increased IQ might be related to the amount of time the older child spends teaching the younger child new skills. Using that same analysis, here’s my addition to the theory: oldest siblings are better able to appropriately deal with frustration because they spend more time trying to teach younger siblings who have no interest in learning the crap they are teaching.

Here is how this theory has developed in my house. My two and a half year old girl is in her full-on mimicking stage currently. She wants to cook like mama, take care of babies, pretend she is a nurse giving babies medicine, take babies for walks, etc. But most of all, she likes to play school. Of course, most of her playtime is trying to herd dolls, toys, animals, and people to her "circle time" so they can listen to her read a story. So, she walks around the house yelling, "CIRCLE TIME! Come sit for CIRCLE TIME!"

And pity the fools who fail to sit in her circle.

She does pretty well with the dolls and toys. She arranges them in a circle and only reprimands them if they don’t sit still. (Some baby dolls just do not sit on their bottoms like they should, you know, and falling forward on your face is apparently not a good reason for missing circle time.) She has little trouble with our dog, who will do just about anything you ask her to do if it involves the chance of love and attention. Of course, the 120 pound dog takes up a large portion of the circle, particularly when she wants to put her head in your lap while you read the story.

She does have some trouble with the cat. When she yells CIRCLE TIME in his general direction, he puts his ears back and take off like his tail is on fire. When he gets far enough away from her, he turns back and gives her that "HELL NO" look that cats are so good at.

However, she has the most trouble with my 15 month old son. Being human and all, she expects him to sit attentively in her circle and listen to the story without talking, moving, gesturing, averting his eyes, or touching anything else in the circle. She gently walks him over to the circle and says, "Sit here. On your bottom. Sit HERE!" He just walks away. She brings him back, "Sit here. HERE! IT’S CIRCLE TIME. SIT ON YOUR BOTTOM!" Now he thinks it’s funny and he runs away.

This could go on for hours. She has a burning desire to have him behave, sit in circle time, and do exactly what she tells him to do and he has a burning desire to screw with her because he loves to see her mad. Yesterday, this "game" ended in tears for my little girl. "MAMA - he won’t sit on his bottom! He won’t sit in circle time! It’s CIRCLE time. He won’t use his listening ears! MAMA - he’s running away! He took my book! MAMA! He won't sing ABCs! MAMA! I want him to sit and he not sit!"

I explained to her that he is still a baby and babies sometimes don’t listen and you have to remind them and sometimes they still don’t listen. I said that we are teaching him to be a better listener but it is going to take practice. She responded, "NOOOOO! It’s CIRCLE TIME!" I told her, "This is how I feel when I say, It’s time to put your coat on and you run to the other side of the room." She responded, "But he won’t listen to ME! It’s CIRCLE TIME!"

I found myself at a loss as to how to explain this further to her. All I could say was, "Welcome to my world, babe."