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A different Toddler experience

Raising a 4 year old in a household of much older brothers is a very different experience for me. When my older boys were this small, it was a very different household. I was a different mother. I was still forcing kids to finish their vegetables, go to bed at 8, and there was not a video game in the house. I worked full-time then, so their lives were full of structure. They went to pre-school all day, then we did dinner, baths, read & had a little play time, then off to bed. They had time-outs, and even the occasional spanking. I am so busy multi-tasking these days that if I do put Nick in time-out, I often forget he is there, and he just starts playing again-- totally ineffective I know. He plays DS, PlayStation 3, and XBox. He plays roller hockey, and can ride a skateboard. His vocabulary (while his speech is still a little difficult to understand), is like that of a 10 year old. He changes the channel on the TV, and says, "oh no, Mommy, we'd better change it, that isn't appropriate for me". He is definitely having a different toddler experience than his brothers did. In good ways too. We do everything together, like peas and carrots.

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