Baby Steps: Pestering your sibling? Challenge accepted!

Recently I had a friend ask how my kids and I are doing. I told her the kids are great, they're growing great, learning every day and they love playing with each other -- until they don't. I told her we are finally at that age where we play together, but we also fight, nitpick, annoy and just overall pester each other.

She looked at me, shocked, and said, "That's impossible! Felicity can't even put together full sentences yet!" I looked at her and laughed, and in true Barney Stinson fashion, my kids looked at her and said, "Challenge accepted!" They then proceeded to annoy the heck out of each other.

Full sentences do not stop a toddler from annoying her brother, nor do they stop a 5-year-old brother from annoying the toddler. It is a daily occurrence to hear, "Felicity Kay, stop touching my (insert toy of the day here)" or "Get out of my room!"

The 20-month-old also comes running anytime she perceives that she has been done wrong: "Bubba (unintelligible word) hit, (tears), no, my toy," is heard all too often.

They both also tattle -- a lot! I've been around kids my whole life, but it wasn't until they were my own and were consistently around that I realized they never, ever stop talking, tattling and annoying each other and their parents.

The new favorite at the Pind house is for Felicity Kay to be what we call a parrot. If you say it, she will repeat it. If you do it, she will do it. Cooper thought it was extremely funny until she started to copy him. Now he walks around the house crying, saying, "Felicity won't stop repeating me!"

And then it gets louder, as she starts crying because he is crying, and our house implodes.

It's not all bad, though. They do play with each other. Cooper makes Felicity laugh so hard she has been known to spit milk out of her nose. Felicity has finally given Cooper the constant audience he so desperately needs. Cooper has also been a wonderful teacher, as Felicity now knows how to shake her booty when prompted.

Kids can annoy, but they can also give you love and laughs. We can't wait to see what will happen next at the Pind house!

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Kristen Pind, a native of small-town Gower, Missouri, came to Southeast Missouri State University with big dreams of being the next Katie Couric or Diane Sawyer. She never thought that in her 20s, she'd be married with two kids and living in Cape Girardeau. Keep up with Kristen's adventures as a young mom who's still trying to figure out how her own life fits together. Turns out, she's living a dream she never knew she had, and loving every minute of it. Kristen invites moms of all types to find her "Baby Steps" page on Facebook.