I spent the last 45 minutes in my kitchen trying to keep my mouth shut while listening and watching my 8-year-old daughter torture her 5-year-old brother with older sibling mind games. It’s the classic “Come and Get It” game, and man, does this kid want his sister’s hot pink slime badly. Perhaps 30 minutes ago he didn’t want this slime as much, but now his sister has hooked him into the chase. It started with, “I bet you want to play with this slime as much as I do,” which turned into, “What’s the magic word,” which lead to an eternity of guessing absolute asinine phrases which did not contain the word “Please” in it. Enter toddler frustration stage left, “It’s not fair, you’re not sharing. You don’t love me. You don’t want to play with me.” Choreographed full body collapse performed with perfection, including tears and pathetic sniffles. I hear big sister’s voice say, “You know, you can’t get your way just by crying. You need to act like a big boy if you want to play with me.” Eek, she sounds too much like me, I better soften my approach. He miraculously gets up and begins the quest again to get the slime. Hmm, maybe I shouldn’t soften my approach after all, it seemed to work for my daughter.
Then begins the dance, “If you want it, you have to get it out of my hands.” Sounds simple enough to my boy, not at all noticing the maniacal laugh spilling out of my girl’s mouth. Aaaaaaaaand they’re off. Here goes my daughter on a full sprint every which way, around tables, in and out of rooms, jumping on and off couches, waving that damn slime madly in the air. “Come on, hurry up and catch me!” Just a few feet from her comes a determined boy, but seriously slow as hell, not knowing that he can be that much faster if he just stops whining while running after her. Boom, someone falls, which is always kind of funny for all involved, including and especially adult spectators. Both children are now out of breath. I’m thinking, “Mom win, both kids got some cardio in. I’m the best.” Both stop for water breaks, and I’m thinking, “Now they’re drinking water, not juice or chocolate milk. Hydration is key. I’m killing it at the mom game.”
The slime challenge transitions now. My daughter says, with crazy eyes and a look on her face like she knows her little brother is an idiot, “Ok, I’ll be nice. Here, just grab it out of my hands.” My idiot son smiles triumphantly with a look on his face like he has finally cracked her. Said son has some slightly weak fine motor skills and upper extremities. Daughter is a gymnast and could probably beat me up if we were the same size. Everyone knows this except the boy. He goes for the slime, clutched tightly in my girl’s fist, and he begins to try to pry her hand open one finger at a time. Five finger fail. How is this girl’s maniacal laugh echoing throughout my house? It’s like she has powers. Now I’m getting really annoyed because this has been going on for too long and the boy just keeps falling for every single trap she sets. Classic Tom and Jerry.
In my mind I am looking at my decision chart. Should I interject or stay out of it so that they could learn conflict resolution? Well, I had already kept quiet and observed and the game keeps spiraling in a bad direction. I decide to step in, but try to make it seem like I am randomly establishing break time. I say, “Okay guys, let’s have some quiet time. Reese, you can go read your book. Evan, you can pick a book and I’ll read to you.” Both whine. Hmm, not quite the bibliophiles I’d hope they’d be by now. The boy asks one more time if he could have the slime and she says no. I can’t take it anymore. I call Reese into the kitchen and say very quietly to her, “How long are you going to torture your little brother?” In comes the excuses, “No, I wasn’t…” this, and “He was doing…” that, and “We were just…” this, and on and on. I said, “Listen to me. I have two older siblings, and I know EXACTLY what you are doing. I don’t want to hear your explanations. Someday he will be bigger than you, and when he’s sitting on your head, I will not feel sorry for you and I will not stop him. Remember that.” I suppose this was a good opportunity to talk about being kind and fair, but I missed the boat. Oh well, can’t have every mom win.
The girl stomps upstairs like the teenager she thinks she is, and the teenager I’m dreading to meet someday. I call the boy into the kitchen and say in a very low and serious voice, “Dude, don’t be a fool. You let her mess with you for 45 minutes.” His little voice says, “I can’t help it, she is always tricking me.” I offer some sage advice, “For the next few years, she will be stronger, taller, and faster than you. So you need to outsmart her. Use your brain to get what you want. And if you want to be bigger than her, eat your vegetables and exercise more. But for real, stop getting fooled, it’s a bad look on you.” Again, this would have been an excellent time to discuss conflict resolution and compromise through using words effectively, but I think I just wanted to call my kid a fool and also get in a quick plug for eating veggies and exercising.
After some quiet time and space, they were back to being buds. I didn’t bring up the situation again, mostly because it will likely happen again tomorrow, or possibly later today. But it really took me back to my kid days, when my brother would do the same exact things to me. My sister was more of a psychological warfare type, being 7 years older than me. My brother, though, was a year and a half older than me, and hit me with the physical and psychological tactics. It’s part of sibling life, and it’s usually all fun and games until someone gets the wind knocked out of them (me). Looking back, all those “Catch me if you can” fights were super fun (until they weren’t), and I’m glad to see my kids having the same experiences that my siblings and I did. Inspite of all the fighting, we all turned out fine-ish as adults. I never did manage to out-smart or out-strength my brother or sister, which is probably why I’m telling my boy to use that brain now while he’s still the little one. But I did manage to develop the most psychological baggage and am super defensive in arguments, yet still ended up being my parents’ favorite kid (self-proclaimed), so there’s that. Life goals.
The Mundame 