I came to the sad realization the other day that SS5 is more mature than SS7 and SS7 expects to receive the same praise for doing 'big boy' things as SS5.

DH and I have given up on trying to convince BM that the skids are NOT babies anymore. But for the past year or so we have been doing our part to promote Independence and maturity in the skids because DH and I are trying to have a baby of our own. And lets face it I am not looking forward to seeing the regress when baby arrives.

I have posted in the past that skids have some issues which include attention problems, sleep issues and autism. But to me these are no excuse for laziness and BM just feeds their laziness by basically doing everything for them.

But the other day we were getting ready for bath time when SS5 asked me to wash him, for whatever reason SS5 will not let DH wash him, it has to be me. To which SS7 chimes in that he wants me to wash him as well. I declined and SS7 began to pout that it wasn't fair that I wash SS5 but not him, we make him wash himself. I told him that he was old enough to wash himself and even SS5 had started to do something things on his own, I just supervise. So then he asked for my supervision.

Then the other day we were out snowmobiling and SS5 was doing great. He got off the machine and was undressing himself while SS7 just stood there want waited for assistance so when we went inside I told SS5 what a great job he was going and what a big boy he was. SS7 chimes in that he was a big boy too. He even explained to me how he was older than SS5. I told him that was great now start acting older. I said no more baby talk, it's not cute and start helping Nana with your snow gear. It was harsh I know but seriously it's getting old.

And we try to praise him for doing things he should but he just doesn't do it enough so yeah he gets praised less that SS5, but when we praise ss5 now he will chime in that he does that too, which is great but he is 2 years older! The expectations are higher and he doesn't seem to get it.

I have also talked about how SS7 struggles to make friends his own age, but at BM's house they don't get out much and he just plays with SS5. He had a little friend last summer but he quit coming over because SS7 didn't want to do anything of the things that the kid wanted to.

Even yesterday I was washing the bedding and I pulled the covers off to find 6 teddy bears in SS7's bed, one he calls "Beary". While SS5 only had 1, a stuff dragon named "Dragon". SS5 is really into fighting and robots while SS7 prefers Pokemon Cards and video games.

And explaining it to him only seems to make sense to about 2 minutes. I thought about having DH take SS7 out to do 'man' things.