MINE!!!!!!

Sharing is a concept that is unheard of for some children. It is foreign and it is bad. What's yours is mine and what's mine is mine. If I want it, that's mine too. It's all mine. But that can't be the case for people who have more than one child. EVERYTHING has to be shared. The CONCEPT works, but the reality? Not so much.

My kids have certain things that are theirs and theirs alone. It's a significant item and it's NOT a sharable thing. Don't get me wrong here. It's not as if they DON'T have things that are considered "just theirs".

 But then there's everything else.  The fodder for occasional sibling spats, whining and temper tantrums. The "community toys".

I really don't get how there could be a gojillion toys to play with, but if one kid starts playing with something, they all have to play with that one thing. What the fuck is up with that? I mean, it's not all the time that my kids will end up fighting over something, but when it does happen..... I've started taking things away and storing them in the basement until I deem such a time that they can return from the depths of the dungeon of terrors. It's been working AND when the toys do come back upstairs, it's like they're getting them for the first time again. But it starts all over again. The little squabbles about who took what out of whose hand and the "I WAS PLAYING WITH THAT!!!!" and the "THAT'S MINE!!!!" and the whining and bitching and screaming and crying..... Ugh....

I know that there wil come a day when all of this will be nothing more than a subject that they will all laugh about in conversations that start off with, "Hey... Do you remember the time when...." when my kids get older. In the meantime, I get to go play referee YET AGAIN over YET ANOTHER SQUABBLE over a stupid Lego block..... Yay!