My wonderful, pain-in-the-butt 3-year-old

My faith had been restored in my parenting skills and my son. We went to a party last night at one of Tom's co-worker's house. I was apprehensive about going because the host has no children, and we weren't sure if anyone who was coming had children either. We've been invited to plenty of parties where the hosts say "oh it's fine-definitely bring the kids, we'd love to see them!" Then my kids get to their immaculate home expensively decorated with items that probably cost more than I make in a year. I spend much of the time running after Chris and yelling at TJ. Not much fun for me or the kids. But last night we had a great time. The house was fairly kid-friendly (turns out she has grand kids) and there were four other kids there. But here's what really got me, there was a 3 year old boy there who was an absolute BRAT! As soon as we walked through the door he stood in the corner of the room with arms crossed screaming "I don't WANT to play with HIM". while pointing at TJ. He stole TJ and Chris' toys and grabbed both their juice boxes right out of their hands and drank them. The whole night I tried to figure out which adult belonged to this demon child - it was difficult since no one was disciplining him. I finally pin-pointed the mother out to be the woman who sat on the couch all night not speaking to anyone, including her child. I guess if my kid behaved that way, maybe I wouldn't want to claim him either. But, as I said earlier, I now have new faith in myself as a parent. TJ may be a very energetic child who constantly pushes boundaries, but at least he has boundaries. He is always mindfull of other kids (especially his brother) and very polite to adults - most of the time! The boy last night reminded me of a couple of things: First -TJ is a good kid, he loves to test and push me to my limit, but overall he IS a good kid! And second - Parenting is difficult and being constantly aware of your child's behavior is the first sign you are a good parent.