Carson's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day...

~You can pick up a hint of his devious ways in this grin~

On Monday morning, Carson refused to get dressed for school. He stated he was not going, he's staying in his PJ's. Carson was then dressed by force and spoon fed his cold oatmeal. He whined too long and I wasn't about to make more, so lumpy oatmeal it is. I dropped him off at school where he was moping around and clinging to me. I left and he was teary and sad.
I picked him up after school and Miss Heather informed me that he had a hard day. Translation: Miss Heather and Miss Tami had a hard day. He would get up and play with the toys when he was supposed to be sitting down. He refused to do his work. While all the other kids went out to play he hurried and finished his work so that he could go play too. Nothing like a little motivation, right? Then, when he was supposed to be out playing, he sneaked back into the preschool room and locked everybody out. That's right. The teachers had to go around to the front of the house to break into the preschool room. I'm so proud.
Home was fine. Just the fights over not cleaning up his toys, not eating lunch, requesting 1000 snacks, you know, the usual.
We picked up Preston and things only got worse. As I was helping Preston with his homework, Abby was screaming, dinner was not being fixed, and laundry was molding in the washer, my meltdown started coming on fast and hard. Abby got a firm scolding for drawing on the wall, which reduced her to even more tears. Preston was working excruciatingly slow trying to bring on my aneurysm that much faster. I finally gave up and sent the boys outside so I could calm Abby and myself down. After 3-4 minutes tops, Abby wanted to go outside too. I find Preston in fits of hysterical tears on the trampoline. Carson was looking especially devious. He had evidently been beating on Preston for the last 3-4 minutes. He was calling Pres a baby and telling him to stop crying all whilst hitting him over and over and over and over again. My boiling point had been reached. I grabbed the little monster swatted him, and sent both boys inside. After jumping with Abby for a few minutes to "let the anger out", I went back in to talk to them.
The reason Preston had started crying was because Carson had taken his Plush Mickey Mouse toy, that he's had for 6 years, stripped it and shoved it face first in the mud while Preston begged for mercy on the poor, defenseless, stuffed rodent. That's when the "don't be a baby", "quit crying", beating commenced.

~No worries, Mickey pulled through~

As much as it bothers me that my seven year old is a wuss, it bothers me even more that my four year old is a bully. Then, I said the words we've all heard our mother's say..."Just you wait until your Father gets home. You think I spank hard? You have no idea." I let the fear stew in him for the next 2 hours. Preston was even pleading his case asking me to not tell Daddy to spank him.
When Trevor got home, Carson tried to keep us separated. He wanted me to stay downstairs while Trevor changed out of his work clothes. He knew I would rat him out if we were alone.
Trevor was very calm about the whole thing. He gave Preston a pep talk about standing up for himself and not just laying down and letting himself be pummelled. Then, he turn to Carson and said, "I'll talk to you, later. Alone." Again, the fear was almost palpable. I confess I had a case of the giggles. It can be funny to be on this side of the discipline. We sound so grown up.
He might have gotten out of the serious spanking if he hadn't knocked Abby down the stairs ten minutes later. Luckily, she only went down two steps before I caught her.
After a few tears, and a red behind, Carson was much sweeter to me and to his brother and sister. Later that night, we found a chunk of blond hair with gum in it on the living room floor. Moral of the story: I believe in well thought out spankings.