Cole's episode

Today as I was waiting for Riley to get downstairs and eat breakfast before school, Cole came down, and proceeded to tell me what a rotten night he had, and it's raining, and he's just not gonna have a very good day. I tried to give him the proper sympathy and told him that sometimes I don't feel great in the mornings, either, and that you just have to see how the day goes. Sometimes it gets a lot better and then you have a great day. (Maybe not great, but when dealing with a five year old, optimism works so much better than my usual pessimistic demeanor). Cole's going through this thing where he just adores a good argument, and while I was in the midst of explaining that you have to see how the rest of the day unfolds, he interrupts me with, "No it doesn't, Mom". I stopped in my mid-sentence, and tried again to get some words in and was cut off with another, "No Mom, it doesn't". I just rolled my eyes and stopped talking at that point, thinking that he probably would have reacted better to pessimism. Anyway, Riley came downstairs, and went into the bathroom to fix her hair, and brush her teeth. I went back to checking my email, and vaguely hearing Riley and Cole talking.....Cole trying to enlighten Riley with some of his good-morning cheer, and, telling her, for the 800th time about his Iron Man figures that technically he's not supposed to get until Friday. However, he's carried the box around, slept with it, and memorized each figure's name inside for the last week and a half. (Every two weeks my kids get an allowance. They DO have to do chores, and clean their rooms, and basically be on alert for any cleaning whim I have at any given time. I'm a stickler for making them "earn" their allowance, and they are good about doing it).
Now, Riley, being the good sister she is, listens for the 800th time as he goes on and on about who is and who isn't a bad guy, and how he imagines the heroes would look if they were to take off their helmets. By that time, I've totally tuned out, because personally, if I have to hear another imagined iron man scenario, my head will explode. Suddenly, Cole starts his cry of despair. It starts out like, Uh....wahhhhhhAHHAAHHHHHAHHHHH! He's seriously like an infant in that he has to do some serious ground work before he hits his plateau but once he's there, he is in full force and can go on forever. I used to get worked up about this. But, I've also come to understand that he's a bit on the dramatic side, so now it just more or less pisses me off that I have to hear him scream. (And I'm having yet another kid....what am I thinking?)
He runs out to the kitchen table where I'm at and says, " Mom, Riley sc-scared me....wahhhhhhhhh!" I'd had it. All my sympathetic mothering skills have been used up. For those of you that have witnessed me around my children lately, you know what I'm saying. Heaven help them. I not-so-patiently asked what happened? Cole says, "I was standing dere, and Riley scared me, I said". I again asked, "Well, what did she do?" "She scared me, I said! Wahhhhh!!!!!" and then he just went on and on while I dumbly stared at him. Finally, I go: "Oh come on, Cole! You need to suck it up. What if you were a super-hero, or Iron Man? Do you think he'd cry and freak out if his sister scared him while she was brushing her teeth?" He stopped fake crying long enough to yell at me, "MOM! I'M JUST A KID! Don't you know that?" I looked at him with all his tears streaking down his face, and Riley had poked her head out of the bathroom to look at me like, "whoa, he just freaked out, big time". I started laughing because he was so angry with me he was almost shaking. I calmly said, "sorry. I know you're a kid. But you need to realize that sometimes you'll be scared, and it's really not an excuse to start crying and screaming. You just have to be like Iron man and shake it off". He calmed down, and took some deep breaths. Came up to me and let me give him a hug. And goes, "Mom, it's just hard sometimes to be so brave always". I told him that I'm sure it was, and I wouldn't know, because I'm not brave all the time. He let me hug him for a few more seconds and then started telling me what Iron Man would be afraid of if he were a kid, and then on and on it went. He's seriously the weirdest kid I've ever met.