Share and share alike?

Sharing is hard.

It is a relatively well known fact that I am not an A+ sharer.

I mean I'll loan you a shirt, but you better not stain it. You can borrow my books, but don't return them with a broken spine or dog-eared pages. Of course you can use my car, but it'd be nice if you returned it with a full tank of gas.

I'll always share a glass of wine and my couch with you, but you better not sit in my spot.

You get the point.

It looks like I have, sadly, passed this trait on to my darling cherub. She understands what it means to share. She always wants me to share my juice, breakfast, treat. On Mother's Day she gave me a balloon, and quickly said "Share, Mama".

She gets the concept, she just doesn't embrace it - particularly (dudududum) with Rylan.

Rylan will be happily at home with his mommy and daddy (who, according to Addie are Mimmie and Dic) and Addison, out of the blue, will say "No, Ryry, MINE".
She and I were driving home from Lowe's today and she was holding empty makeup bag of mine (okay, maybe it's called Total Bitch Bag, and maybe I find it a little inappropriately funny when she plays with it) and repeatedly hugging the bag to her chest and saying not loudly, but emphatically, saying "Mine. Mine. No Ryry, MINE". Poor Rylan wasn't even there to defend himself.

I always remind her that it's nice to share and that Rylan is allowed to play with her toys. Yes, I even do this when Rylan is not around. But even with my endless reminding, she is quite adamant about sharing on her terms only - particularly (dudududum) with Rylan.

In the one hour that Ry was at our house this afternoon I heard "No, Ryry, MINE" at least 25 times. Sometimes it was in regard to her books, or chair, or juice cup, or the cat. Some times it was over one of her 78 cell phones, her play houses, her tunnel. Once it was over me.

I caught her not sharing, emulating one of my less than quality traits, a bunch today. And luckily for you, I even caught a moment or two with the camera.

The *GIMME THAT! THAT'S MINE* face.

Rylan touched her toy. OOPS.

No Ryry. MINE. MY ball. NO.

We have had a bizarre amount of birds descend on our back yard since the beginning of the year. On New Year's day I began to worry that maybe we were in the middle of a Hitchcock movie. I was waiting for one of those winged rodents to break through our window and peck out my eyeballs (but that may have been the mimosas clouding my thought process). Addison was mesmerized, so was Michelob. For that matter so were we.

Anyway, a fraction of the birds returned today. They ate the berries on our trees, pooped them back out on our patio, and again mesmerized the cat and kiddo.

Both Addie and Michelob stood at the kitchen window for a solid ten minutes today watching the birds. Mich made her weird cat chirping noise at them while twitching her tail and Addison repeatedly pointed at them and tried to tweet. She definitely doesn't have the tweet down yet. A skill we must focus on mastering over the next week.

Once the birds left, Addison decided that she and Michelob were one in solidarity. With their new found camaraderie, Addie decided she could share her cookies. Michelob wasn't so much interested, but Addie was feeling charitable, so she offered her treats up to the birds...They weren't really interested either.

I say we had solid day of progress in the sharing department....Cookies for the kitty and the birds, well done.

Of course, when I tried to have one of her goldfish crackers at snack time you would have thought that I had asked her for all her food for the rest of her life.