Breathe.

Today, we got home from school and Evan demanded to watch a show.  He wanted Chuggington, and he wanted it NOW.  I tried to make light of the demand as I turned it on for him and think about his busy little morning at school.  A little down time couldn't hurt.  After the show started, he wanted an orange.  NOW.  No, wait, before he eats an orange, he changed his mind, he wants pretzels and he wants them NOW.  (Nevermind the orange juice dripping off my hands from peeling his little orange.  No time to clean up, the pretzels are needed NOW.)  I got him the pretzels and went back to the orange.  When the 10 min show got over I heard screaming from the living room.  He wanted another show.  NOW. 

I decided to reset our afternoon and told him that I would like him to come into the kitchen for lunch with me and Wesley.  He came in, very reluctantly and then demanded water, oranges, pretzels, more oranges, chocolate milk.  I tried my best to be patient and to help him to be patient, but things were beginning to escalate. 

Ok, reset again.  I will get Wesley down for a nap and then we can go downstairs and play.  I got Wesley to sleep and as soon as I stepped foot downstairs he demanded a cliff bar.  NOW.  After the cliff bar, he wanted a tortilla.  NOW.  I finally told him that he needed to be a little nicer and that I was going to work a little bit until he was ready to be nice.  I also explained to him that he was totally capable of getting things for himself, but that if he would rather wait nicely, I would run get him the other lunch items in a few minutes.  He asked how long.  I told him maybe 1 min.  He started crying saying 1 min was too long and that I needed to go and get it NOW.

After about 5 min. of this, I went upstairs, lovingly cut his tortilla into a million small squares (just like he loves) and brought them down on a plate.  When I got downstairs he said, "Um, mom, THAT IS THE WRONG PLATE."

Breathe.  Ignore him for a few hours minutes and BREATHE!