I lose - he wins!

When our children were born I tried to be as politically correct as possible.
The Girl was given trucks and tool sets and The Boy received his own set of dolls.
I was offended by their resistance to my PC efforts when I discovered The Girl serving tea to her trucks out of an upside-down construction hat and caught The Boy playing 'zzzooooom, boom, bang!' with his mummy and daddy dolls.

And now, The Boy is four years old and they tell me he has the same amount of testosterone running through him as a 14-year-old teenager.

I found myself nose-to-nose with him the other day.
He stood on the bed after being sent to his room, receiving three frowny faces on his sticker chart and a smack on the bum.

The veins in his little neck were bulging as he leaned towards me like the Incredible Hulk, hissing through clenched teeth that I was making him "very, very angry".
Finally I resorted to the worst punishment of all - I grounded him!
Has there ever been a four-year-old in the world who was grounded?

He replied "I am not listening to you and you, you, you are a fanny-head".

I had to leave the room, hold the door shut behind me, lean against it and snicker hysterically into my palm.
From the other side of the door I heard a little, suprisingly-calm voice ask - in a quizzical manner - "what's grounded?"

So I've decided, that's it! I've lost. I am officially waving the white flag.

I knew he could out-stubborn me when he was a year old and wouldn't sleep during the nights.
If I sang lullabies he'd scream "no, no, no" and thrash back and forwards. (I'm assured it's not just my singing voice.)
We tried controlled crying - he kicked the cot off the wall and walked out.
We tried it again at age two and he literally took the door off the hinges.
He won!

One night, at 1am in the morning, I finally turned off all the lights except my bedside lamp and crawled into bed. He stood in the doorway screaming "I'm not going to bed" and I said "well, I am".
I woke up two hours later and he was asleep, standing up with his forehead mashed against the door jamb.
He won!

Ironically, the only person who can best him is his sister.
Now, I just need to wait for her hormones to set in and I can sit back and watch the fireworks!
It's only about 10 years from now - I can probably last it out that long with a cattle prod and a lot of frowny faces.