He’s good

Mayhem was given Lego Indian Jones 2 for his birthday on Tuesday. Since then he has cleared the levels for movies 1, 2 & 4 is almost done with 3. He’s asked me for help about 3 times and all 3 were the final boss fights of a level.  This is quite an improvement over last year. He received Lego Star Wars for Xmas 2008 and I was pretty much reading most of every level’s walkthrough to him for that one.

He was better with Lego Indian Jones in the spring, only needing some help on a completing a couple levels. He did almost all of Lego Batman himself in the fall once he understood he could play as both Batman and as the villains. He isn’t getting 99% completion rates on his first run through or anything but he is problem solving on his own and is starting to understand he needs to save up his coins if he wants to buy the big ticket items and not just spend them all  on low level characters just because he has the money. He is also learning to work & cooperate with his brother by other methods than whining “ HAAAAAVOOOOC!!!! You’re CHEEEEEEEEETING!!! Go over there!!!! TTHERE!!!! MOOOOOMMM HE ISN’T WISTNING TOOOO MMMMEEEEEEEE”. He’s been very good at practicing anger management skills as well because both of our Wii remotes connections for the nunchucks are worn out so half the time the game won’t respond, which is very frustrating. But he quickly learned he has two options – stop playing until we can buy new remotes or keep your frustration to yourself.  Too much yelling “STUPID FING WON’T WISTEN. DO THIS!! THIS STUPID WEMOTE!!!” gets the Wii banned for the day.

Not to mention Wii is a full body sport for Mayhem.  He doesn’t use the wii mote to punch, he puts his whole body into it. He runs when the character runs, jumps when he jumps. The kid is tired at the end of an hour.

Yeah, he’s probably playing too much Wii right now since it’s a new game. But I think he’s having an educational time doing it learning real world skills he will need and getting some exercise as well.

Those are not the only skills he has been learning either. A couple weeks ago we went to Glory Days for dinner. He was cranky in general when we got there but a threat of no dessert seemed to stifle the worst of it. Until his meal arrived.

Usually he gets grilled cheese but this time he asked for mac & cheese. It came with shredded cheese on top.

Mayhem lost his shit at the sight of the shredded cheese. Like he’d never seen such an abomination in his life. Like he isn’t the child who eats shredded cheese by the handful out of the bag at home.

DH removed him & took him outside for a brisk walk in the cold & a lecture on how he is supposed to behave & the various privileges he will lose for misbehaving. They came back in with Mayhem promising he would be good but within 5 minutes he was wailing about wanting grilled cheese & the mac & cheese being yucky. We’d come in 2 cars so DH grabbed him & took him home leaving me to have the rest of his meal wrapped up & wait for Havoc to finish to his. When we arrived at home Mayhem was in bed. DH put him there as soon as they walked in the door. It was 7:15.  Apparently he had spent the whole drive home wailing that he would be good & he wanted to go back & he would eat his dinner & he would be good if DH would just take him back.

Yesterday we went to Glory Days again for dinner (my ‘issue food’ currently appears to be fried fish, Glory Days has great fried fish). On the way there we reminded Mayhem of the last visit & what would happen again if there was a repeat. He says

“I have grilled cheese this time Mama. The macaroni & cheese makes me frustrated.”

Good call kid.