I’m trying to figure this out and I can’t. Are they your stepchildren? Foster kids? I can’t imagine what you mean by them having a “latest batch of parents”.
I have an expert who talks all day AND lapses into baby talk. If you interrupt her to try to get her to cut to the point of a story, she gets irate.
They are also sooooo borrrrrrred, all the time.
Oh, my god that reminds me of my kids. It started when my daughter was something like 13-14 months old. She’s now 2.5 and my son is 6 and they’re both hell bent on having the last word about the stupidest crap. “Her hand is in my space!!!”
My Son: tries to peel my daughter’s hand off the edge of the table where she’s placed it to drive him nuts
My Daughter: starts to shriek
My Son: You’re not my teacher! You’re not my parent!
My Daughter: Yes!
My Son: No, you’re not!
Daughter: SHRIEK
Son: GROWL
Daughter: SHRIEK
Son: GROWL, maybe smacks hand on table in irritation
Daughter: Smacks hand on table
Me: having waded into this around the first shriek with the stupid idea that reason will be successful, finally yell “Enough!!!” myself. “If you’re going to argue all the time, you can both go somewhere else!”
Both: NO!!!
Me: If you can’t speak to each other nicely, don’t speak at all.
Daughter: No!
Son: overlygirl, you don’t talk to grownups like that! Your mother made you! Show her some respect! (yes, this last part comes from my husband)
I hate the bickering. Though if my sister and I are any indication, it won’t stop until someone goes to college.
We’ve nicknamed my 13-year-old Hurricane Chris because she leaves a trail of debris behind her wherever she goes. She will walk into a perfectly clean room wearing shorts and a t-shirt, with apparently nothing in her hands or pockets, and walk out leaving lip gloss, chapstick, a bracelet, a gum wrapper, a sock, etc., in a trail behind her. On the other hand, I suppose I don’t ever have to worry about her being lost in a forest…
Oh, and the huffing and eye rolling at everything I say!
iPod
Mine started a phase the other day where she does NOT want to sleep unless someone is holding her. Putting her in her bassinet, pack and play, or other safe place for a baby to sleep makes her cry so hard she isn’t making any sound at all, just turning bright red with her mouth wide open in the angriest possible way. She will allow herself to fall asleep if she is in our bed but you must be next to her or she wakes up and screams like she is being murdered.
She caught Hand Foot & Mouth Disease at daycare. And then gave it to me.
The sore throat and fever I could deal with. The painful, prickly, itching bumps all over my hands and feet I just about can’t deal with. I’m taking ibuprofen and applying topical Benadryl but GODDAMN I’M SO FUCKING SICK OF THIS DISCOMFORT!!! It looks and feels exactly like I have poison ivy all over my hands and feet. I’m miserable and losing my composure. Please, please make it stop.
I had that. Not nearly as bad as you. The sort throat was the worst for me. Get well.
To answer the OP question:
Pokemon.
14 year old boy: texting and Ipod use can occupy 8 hours a day. Grr
12 year old boy: obsesses about a topic and will go one and one about it until I go insane. Last week it was llamas, this week it is cheese-whiz. Grr
10 year old girl: loves to boss others around and tattle tales. Grr
8 year old boy: bursts into tears at the slightest provocation. Has never yet cleaned his room without crying. Grr
I love that overlyverbose is complaining that her kids never stop talking. 
I know how she feels. I have two boys, ages 3 and nearly 6. The three year old talks and asks questions constantly. CONSTANTLY. Sometimes I just need a moment of silence. Or to poop in peace.
My boys bicker a lot too, often accompanied by yelling, hitting and tattling on each other. They’re doing it right now, in fact.
Heheheheh. Kids.
My son likes the game Skylanders for Wii. He’s 5 years old, and not nearly good enough at video games to play it on his own.
“Daddy, are you ready to play Skylanders yet?! How many minutes?”
3.5 year old will eat two bites of her dinner and then the fidgeting begins. She asks for hugs. She gets up to go to the potty, then comes out and says “I tried.” She asks for more hugs. She tries to get the cat to sit on her lap. She says she’s cold and wants a blanket. JUST SIT ON YOUR CHAIR AND EAT YOUR DAMN DINNER.
She also asks a “Why” question approximately every 2.7 seconds. 90% of these questions are utterly nonsensical (“Why is that a truck?”) or stuff that she knows the answer to, the other 10% are things I have no desire to discuss with her (“Why am I going to die?”). And God forbid if you ever answer “I don’t know,” because that just means she asks the same question over again, only louder and angrier.
Strangely enough, that never occurred to me! I wonder where they get it.
YES. Also a three and a half year old, but a boy. He’s killing me.
Also the pooping in peace. If I lock the door, they just bang in it and wail like they’ve been abandoned and left for dead. I actually heard myself whining the other day. “Please, just go play for three minutes. Please! Pleeeeeeease!?!?!”
My mother (she who won’t wear a hearing aid because “that’s for old people!” and she’s only 71) started doing that. I stared at her and said “gee, guess someone is already in her second babyhood!”
Worked wonders.
The 6yo Nephew was recently informed by his 3yo sister that “I do not need your help!..
…
Well, sometimes I do. When I do, I will ask for it, ok?”
“OK, buuuuut if I’m doing something else I won’t be able to help you. OK?”
“OK.”
Their parents are now being driven crazy by having two kids who treat each other like adults… and I’m being driven crazy by my brother being driven crazy! (The kids have discovered that their parents actually go crazier when the kids are being calm and reasonable than when they’re loud - and yes, I’m reasonably sure my brother and his wife are idiots).
“Daddy, are you going to play Minecraft now ?I think you should build something in Minecraft. I want you to make an iron golem with a pumpkin for a head in Minecraft. How does water work in Minecraft?”
Aaargh.
On Saturday I tried to take a nap. My toddler came upstairs to reassure himself that I wasn’t lonely, and hung around playing the harmonica for me. Apparently Mr. Lissar was playing Minecraft with Gnat. I just wanted five minutes to myself. And then when I was showering the toddler came to visit me, grab my clothes, and walk off with them.
This morning toddler wanted five different types of cereal in a bowl, and then cried because I wouldn’t give him second helpings of the things he hadn’t even eaten yet.
Meems just threw her first full-blown toddler tantrum. I knew she was rough around the edges, and initiated the breakfast-Sesame Street-bath-naked time sequence early, but when we ran out of things to do she came apart. She screamed for twenty minutes, first without tears (so I didn’t feel bad) then with tears (so I did feel bad). She wouldn’t let me hug her, wouldn’t play or eat, and wouldn’t calm down on her own. I finally gave her a bottle and put her to bed with her dollie, where she is asleep now.
I’m not sure this really belongs in this thread, because all I feel is sorry for her. She’s such a tiny girl up against such a big world. It just isn’t fair.
Yeah, the tantrums are terrible, especially when they get to the point where you can’t help- they won’t let you hold or comfort them, and you just watch them batter themselves against the world.
It’s the only coping mechanism the little guys have got. They do wind down on their own, out of exhaustion, but it is painful to see them get to that point. Hell, you don’t have to be a parent to have lived that one. 