What?!?!

I can't think of anything better to name this post. I am totally caught off guard by Buggy's most recent "stage", and it is very quickly making me crazy.

Buggy has recently developed an intense phobia of wasting water. Yes, you read that correctly, wasting water.

This morning during bath time, he threw a fit over me running the water for more than about 1 minute, resulting in almost no water in the tub for them to bath in. When it came time to rinse the soap off of them, I had to run the water some more so that I could actually rinse them off. This resulted in (I'm not even kidding here) a full-on total and complete MELTDOWN. From my (almost) 5-year-old son. Because he said he was afraid that I was wasting water. We had a good LONG talk about how taking a bath was not wasting water, and that sometimes we need to let the water run so that we can use it. I thought he understood me at that point.

I guess not.

Tonight, I had to bathe Baby Sister again, because she pooped everywhere. The boys were already in bed, but the bathroom is right next to their room and they were still awake. I turned on the water, gave her a bath and was headed back to her room with her to get her dressed, when Buggy yelled at me from his room, in tears (once again, unfortunately not kidding) worried that I hadn't turned the water off, and that I was wasting water.

AAARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHH!!!!!!!!

He isn't afraid of water itself. He likes to play in the sprinkler, and he loves swimming. This isn't a water phobia. He truly is afraid that I am just going to go around leaving all the water sources in our house running at all times, and wasting water. Really.

When I am doing the dishes he will frequently lecture me because I am running the water. (Of course I am running the water...I'm doing the dishes. That requires water.) I'm getting frustrated just thinking about it, and really don't love that my son must suddenly think that I am completely stupid.

I don't know where this came from, but if I ever find out who/what/where he picked this up from, I will gladly give that person/company/tv channel a piece of my mind.

We are pretty "green" at our house. We recycle, a lot. We have a compost bin, and all of our appliances are high efficiency. (not even mentioning the cloth diaper thing) I am trying to teach the boys to be more environmentally friendly, but I don't know how to do it if anything they learn gets translated into "we can't take a bath for fear of wasting water".

Is my kid just crazy. I know he has a tendency to be pretty intense, but come on. I worry that he is going to need therapy just to be able to take a stinkin' bath (let alone live a normal live). I pretty much don't know what to do. I have tried to explain things rationally to him, it seems like a thousand times, but I don't know if any of it is sinking in or if we are just going to have to continue to deal with these un-real reactions to things like running water.

Has anyone else's kid(s) ever done something like this? Or, am I alone in this boat. Please, someone tell me this is normal....or tell me what I can do to make it more bearable.

Thanks for listening to (or I should say reading) me rant for a few minutes. I feel better now that I have this one out there.

Santa...Yeah Right!

My son is afraid of Santa Clause. Not my two-year-old, the other one. The "I'm four and a half, and completely independent" Buggy.

We had this problem last year. The two times we went to see Santa he was scared and wouldn't go near him. One of the times he wanted to go back once we had been through the line (frustrating) but the other time, he flat out told me, "Mom, I don't want to go over there". So, we didn't. We left the party at that point, thankful to be getting home a little earlier.

Well, fast forward a year. A few weeks ago Buggy was telling me about something he wanted. I told him to put it in his letter to Santa. He promptly replied, "No, you do it. I'm scared of him." Too scared to even write a letter I guess.

Last night was our church Christmas party (the same party mentioned above). The program ended and in came Santa, and once again: "Mom, I don't want to go over there". Well, me being the silly person that I am thought that we should at least try, for Beefy's sake (he might actually like it). So I convinced Buggy that he would get a candy cane if we went to see Santa, and he agreed to try.

Well, we got at the end of the long, long, line, and waited forever - and when we got there Beefy sat on Santa's lap with only a little bit of coaxing. Buggy was mortified. He hid behind me the whole time, and wouldn't even go near enough to get his candy cane.

I'm not sure what to do at this point. I don't want to torture him with the Santa thing, but I also think he is a little young to be giving up on. It is for sure a tough situation with that kid. Hmmm...