I have been dubbed, "The Mean Mommy!"

Anthony has hit this oh-so-wonderful stage.  If he wants something he promises to be mine or Chris's best friend in exchange.  When he doesn't get his way he yells, with his voice gradually getting louder, about how horribly mean we are.

Last night he wasn't behaving well at bedtime.  We let the kids stay up as late as they want, as long as they are in their bed and quiet.  Anthony uses this time to read, and he knows that he must have his books in his room PRIOR to bedtime.  Last night he kept coming out of his room to get more books, and the final time I told him he needed to get back in his room immediately or he was losing all of his books for the evening.  He ignored me, so I confiscated his books.  This resulted in a full on melt down with me being the evil person and him accusing me of breaking promises.  He said he made a promise to himself that he could read every night before bed, so by my taking his books I was breaking his promise.  I think his meltdown went on for nearly an hour.

Today, prior to lunch, he kept picking on David and Anastasia. So I sat him down to have a talk with him about stopping when someone asks him to stop teasing them.  The whole conversation he had this grin he gets on his face when he's being a smart butt, and he kept talking back so at the end of it I told him to go to his room and stay there until it was clean.  An hour later it wasn't clean, so I sat the other two down for lunch and told him he could eat his lunch when the room was clean.  Again, another hour of screaming about how he was going to die if he didn't eat right then, and how awful I am, and that it's MY fault he can't clean when I ask him to because of me asking him to (?).  Finally he decided to clean and was happy as a clam afterwards.

I really don't like this stage, at all.