Teasing. It's what's for breakfast, lunch and dinner

Why the red peppers?

A new diet? An attempt at prettying up this blog? A symbol for the color of my face during trying moments of the day?

No. No and no.

The teasing has come to an all time high in this house. Sure, the day has gotten much quieter now that two of my (rowdy) boys are now in school. Gabriel, the sole Haus boy in the house during the day spends much of his time teasing Jaxon, a two year old boy that I watch during the day. Oh, the fighting that goes on around here. I cannot leave the room for a moment, even to pee, which if you care to know I can do in seconds flat. A must-have skill in this house as one never knows when an emergency or loud scream will occur. TMI? Yeah, I know, but go with it. Allow me a pass. I am surrounded by children.

I have attempted to explain to the children why it is not nice to tease and that it hurts peoples feelings. I have put 'teasers' in time-out. I say 'teasers' because when the older boys get home from school my sweet Elijah starts on Gabriel and even Samantha. Teasing, it's what's for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

A family member recently sent us a box of books their kids no longer read. I found the perfect one in that box today. Almost as if it was there just for me to find.

Today for story time I read 'Tyrone the Horrible'. It's about Boland a little dino who gets teased every day by a T-Rex named Tyrone. Boland tries everything to get Tyrone to stop teasing him and to stop Tyrone from stealing Bolands lunch. Boland offers Tyrone ice cream, he tries ignoring Tyrone and even fights him, to no avail. Finally Boland makes a red hot pepper sandwich for his lunch. The next day Tyrone steals Bolands sandwich and eats it.

I copied the picture of Tyrone breathing fire and hung it on the wall as a reminder to the children that teasing is never a good thing. I am looking forward to reading this story to Elijah. I am almost tempted to buy red peppers and set them on the counter, just as an additional reminder. Talking may not convince them but visual clues just might. That could be considered cruel scare tactics.

Yeah. I am going to do it. *grabbing a pencil and writing hot red peppers on my grocery list*