Sunday night SS5 had a challenging dinner (which is no surprise). He is a picky eater, and SO was feeling sick so I was on my own trying to push him to finish up. I warned him if he didn't finish eating he was going to miss out on the fun of setting up the xmas tree with SS3, SO and I... 30 min later, tears and drama he finally finished it all and went up to have his bath.

In the midst of setting up the tree, we all started chatting about the "family" ornaments. When SO was on his own (year 1) w/kids he got them a personal ornament done with their names. Last year we got one together with the four of us.

SS5 is standing there with a sour look on his face holding the ornament with the 4 of us, and states: "Lemin, I don't want this ornament on our tree because I don't want you in our family any more because you are bossy and I want it to be the way it was before."

I told him to take the ornament upstairs and tell SO what he said to me. SO chatted with him and told him to come back and apologize.

My response: "Ok with me, but that means that I'm not going to tuck you in anymore before bed (our ritual) or play with you or read stories or any of that"

SS5: "I'm sorry I didn't mean it, please don't leave our family"

I know he is just 5 and I kind of felt bad for throwing it back to him, and we did have a nice chat about it later, but it did sting a little too. I know that he was just cranky with me about dinner, but I can't help but see him in my mind 10 years from now at 15 barking up the same tree because he is not getting his way... fun times.