"Natalie Bit My Nose!"

A little drama in the house tonight. Here's how it played out. I just got up from a 4 hour nap because I'm terribly sick with what I do not know. Then I hear this...

Kaitlyn: "Screech, Daddy, Natalie bit me on the nose!"
Joe storms into the bedroom very angry.
Joe: "You bit your sister? Do you want me to bite you?"
Natalie: sobbing, "No!"
CJ's up now and I'm sitting on the couch wondering why everyone is not sleeping at 9 at night. So I get up to try to get to the bottom of this.
Me: "Why are you guys still up?"
No response.
Me: "I want to know why you are still up, answer me!"
Kaitlyn: "Natalie reads me a bedtime story every night."
Me: "Well, that's nice, but you two should be sleeping now. Natalie, why did you bite your sister?"
Natalie: "It wasn't hard!"
Me: "That's not the point, why did you do that?"
Joe comes back into the room and checks Kaitlyn's nose.
Joe: "There are no teeth marks."
Me: "That's beside the point, she should not be putting her teeth on anybody! So again why did you do that?"
Natalie: "She was calling me names!"
Me: "Kaitlyn, what names were you calling your sister?"
Kaitlyn: sobbing, "I wasn't calling her names?"
Me: "Then what happened?"
Kaitlyn: "I took Natalie's book and wouldn't give it back to her."
Natalie plops back down on the bed with major body language proving to me that what Kaitlyn was saying was the truth, but Joe didn't believe it.
Joe: "You can't call your sister names, you don't like being called names."
Me: "Wait a minute now, Natalie what names did Kaitlyn call you that made you bite her?"
Natalie: "I don't remember!"
Me: "Then seems to me that what your sister says has a ring of truth. You bit her because she took a book of yours."
Natalie: with major attitude, "No, why don't you ever believe me?"
Joe flipped out at the way she was talking to me and all heck broke loose. CJ was crying now loud. Joe was storming off saying he can't deal with this anymore.
Me: "Well, until I get the truth you are both grounded."
Natalie: "Nooooooo!"
Me: "Yes, I want the truth, you're just making this worse for yourself."
Natalie: "Okay, Kaitlyn took my book and put it under her pillow and said it was hers and she wasn't giving it back."
Me: "So you bit her for that?"
Natalie: "Yes!"
Me: "Well, don't you think you should say something to your sister?"
Natalie: "No!"
Me: "Really? I think you should!"
Natalie: bargaining "How long am I going to be grounded for?"
Me: "I'm not telling you that."
Natalie: "But how long?"
Me: "You can't say you're sorry just to get out of being grounded. Now don't you think you should say something."
Natalie: rolling her eyes and looking at Kaitlyn, "I'm sorry for biting you!"
Kaitlyn: "That's okay".
Ahhh, things have settled down.
Me: "There will be no Nintendo for you tomorrow."
Natalie gives me the death stare.
Joe: "It's either that or you can stay on your bed all day long when you get home from school tomorrow."
Me: "Ummmm, she doesn't get to choose here."
Joe: "Sure she does, either way she's not playing Nintendo tomorrow. No one is."
Me: "Ummm, Kaitlyn can play Nintendo. I don't think keeping a book should be in the same boat as biting someone."
Natalie: "That's not fair."
Me: "You should have thought about that before you bit her."

There was a little more back and forth and talking about how what she did was wrong and then we told them it was right to sleep. CJ was now wide awake too though so we had to settle him down. Not fun. And certainly not something I felt like dealing with the way I felt. Now the key is to make sure Joe remembers tomorrow Natalie is not to play the Wii.