We have a biter in the house!

"she bit me"

Biting is a stage that most of our kids have gone through. I noticed that they only do it out of frustration or excitement. The only way I have found to avoid it is to leave the kid alone and flick their mouth when they offend.

Our current two year old, obviously, isn't the first and most likely won't be the last but he is currently in the biting stage and it is leaving some marks!

For example, here is our third son's war wound:

Look close, you can see the out line

Here's the real doozy though, my mole massager, apparently, stole his bottle and he retaliated! Check out the evidence that he left behind:

Poor girl still has some slight bruising and it has been more than a week since the incident occurred, but I bet you won't try to steal his bottle anytime soon!

House Rules

As you can imagine having nine kids can make for a crazy and sometimes chaotic house. At times this has been a great source of stress for me.

I HATE rules. I have never been very good at following them let alone setting them but something had to change and it had to change fast!

Three words, one name: Leroy Jethro Gibbs

I have watched just about every episode of every season made of NCIS, with exception to the last season. If I got to choose a TV career it would be an NCIS agent working with Special Agent Gibbs. I mean look at this guy, who wouldn't want to work with him?

Gibbs is infamous for his list of rules. I don't know how many he has but I did find a few printed, check it out:

I abide by rule no. 9 and totally failed at rule no. 13 (I am married to one so not involving him in my daily activities isn't an option)

In my search for peace and harmony in our house I decided we needed some rules and not just any rules but rules that would work. So, I assessed the key problems and came up with the first rule:

Rule no. 1: NO TOUCHING! 

It was inspired by the little pokes and jabs that seemingly went unnoticed but solicited quite the reaction from the victim. It has worked beautifully, when one starts to touch the other all I have to do is yell, "rule no 1!" and the perp immediately ceases and desists their criminal activities. I feel like a genius!

Rule no. 2: NO TALKING! 

In my excitement to bring more peace and harmony I hurriedly looked for other ways to achieve that but the noise was distracting and then it hit me, no talking! So, the birth of my second rule. 

Rule no. 3: NO LICKING!

This one was inspired by my little mole masseuse. Many members of our family have been assaulted by her "kitty cat" identity and to be honest it was disgusting to most of us, myself included, so I felt obligated to protect the rest of the clan from the "licking toddler".

Rules no 4 and 5 get lost and forgotten, some argue that one is no punching and no one really knows what the other one is so we moved on and now I am introducing . . . 

Rule no, 6: NO TOOTING DURING FAMILY PRAYER: IT CAN BE DISTRACTING!

A long title, I know but none the less necessary. You can imagine in a family our size it doesn't take much to distract and I don't feel like my husband and I are asking too much for two minutes of silence and cooperation twice a day to give thanks to our Creator, but sometimes in those quiet moments with knees to the floor and bums in the air little biscuits get squeezed out and it can cause an avalanche of laughter that there is no recovering from, I'm not just talking about the kids, this stuff cracks me up for some reason. So, I have enacted Rule no. 6. So far I am pleased to report we haven't had an offender in the 24 hrs it has existed, we'll see how long that lasts.