and I do mean too late.  Okay, maybe it isn’t too late, it just feels like too late.  For what you ask?  Not spoiling Noah.  I must admit it freely and openly here–Noah is a spoiled little brat.  I missed the easy window of cutting back on the things he gets.  Now it’s a frickin’ nightmare.  He has pretty much always gotten everything he wanted because it was just he and I and he never really asked for too much.  Little did I know that it doesn’t matter how much or little they ask for things it matter how much or in this case little I say “NO.”  Which in our case hasn’t been too often. 

I am paying the price for doing it the easy way.  I didn’t know there would be these drastic consequences.  Maybe hubby tried to tell me there would be but I didn’t want to believe that I could really spoil my child.  But I have and I have done it very successfully.   Now, the hard work starts.  The de-spoiling.  I don’t know exactly how to go about it, but I am trying and it is hard because my little boy is so cute and I wanted him for so long and I do want him to have everything he wants.  But now I have to teach him to work for it and he is thinking that that idea totally sucks.  Well, it does. 

I know that Noah’s behaviors are a little more magnified right now because he just had a birthday and he got lots of presents and a party and he likes presents.  Who doesn’t?  But I have to admit I have babied him a little–but I can’t apologize for that.  The love I feel for him (and for Zoë) is so strong and all encompassing that I have had a hard time being strong and saying no.  I am getting better at it, but it is hard because we are in the process of taking his binky away so he isn’t sleeping great and that makes him and me a little more crabby. 

So, all you experts out there who are a way better parent then me–not only did I spoil Noah, I let him watch TV almost whenever he wants–let me in on ways to break a spoiled child?  I need help and advice and even an “it will get better.”