You know what? I've said it before, and I'll say it again: It must hurt to be four.

My youngest turned four in December, and she hasn't stopped tantruming since. She prefers gutteral noises and pointing to regular speech and banshee wails as a response to any statement that isn't "Yes, you may have all the sugar!" It has been a rough month so far, and we have eleven more months ahead before I can draw conclusions about how five must feel.

God help us all.

My older two aren't exactly making me shoot rainbows out my bunghole either. Now that the Santa Alert Levels have dropped to the baseline, the whining is on an upswing. The freezing weather (like, it gets into the 20s overnight! All you snow-bound people can roll your eyes) and the return to school have stressed us all out, and then, then I have to get all crazy and severely limit the sugars and white flours the whole family is consuming. Can you say withdrawal? It hasn't been pretty.

So naturally, I'm grasping at the little moments right now. Like Saturday, when my six-year-old son and I had a trip to the public library, and spent an hour reading about Homo Habilus and Homo Erectus because his eyes lit up when I showed him the shelf of prehistoric crap non-fiction. He checked out a stack of really dry books full of scientific lingo, and I've been spending a hour a night, stumbling over the pronunciation. Like his father, who insists on reading every notation and sign he comes across, my son wants me to read every call-out, every graphic. I get impatient with it, but do it anyway, because he's such a little sponge. He retains every fact while my brain lets this stuff trickle out an ear as soon as it has escaped my mouth. He sits as close as he can to me when I read, and rests his cheek on my upper arm. More often than not, he nods off while I'm trying to get the accent right on some obscure feathered dinosaurs. His little head is always sweaty when he sleeps, just like when he was an infant, nodding off after a good nursing session.

I'll close the book quietly, and lift him in my arms, mincing my way through to his bedroom. He curls into the fetal position as I lay him down, without fail. It is one of the sweetest times of the day.

My oldest has been full of piss and vinegar when forced to compete for attention with her siblings. Tough luck, I say. Not only that, but she considers everything up for negotiation. She's always working another angle. No doesn't mean no to my girl, and it makes me insane.

Parenting Gods: Excuse me, wishy washy mother who encouraged your preshus baybee to blaze her own trail, see what you have wrought?
Me: Aw, sheeit.

Her latest stunt is ignoring our impending departure from any location. She dilly-dallies like her mother's daughter, and has her father's selective hearing as an added bonus. This is crazy-making at its finest.