Our middle child, Austin, has the propensity to initiate tribal warfare with a vengeance. His usual target is his brother, Keeve, who is younger by 26 months…. if he’s not available, sadly, the dog has been borderline tortured, wrapped, caged, shut in darkness, etc., etc. Thankfully the dog does not retaliate! Brothers do.
The funny part for us as the parents is that Keeve is growing at such a rate and bulk that he nearly outweighs his elder brother. If it weren’t for Austin’s stringent self-imposed work out regime to create abs, pecs, biceps and thighs of steel, I think Keeve might be able to take Austin. We should know soon. It’s inevitable. We’ve warned Aus his whole life that Keeve will eventually be bigger than him, so he should tread lightly. He hasn’t exactly taken our advice to heart.
Like tonight as they both stood at the bottom of the stairs daring the other to go up first and experience the behind paddling from the other. Eventually Austin ran up first, followed closely, but not close enough, by Keeve. At the upstairs landing there was a swat…. then a whine to mama, “Austin spanked me!” If I see lots of blood, I’m sympathetic. If not, I’m not. I replied, “You probably deserved it for something I don’t know about.” I thought the truce was suppressed and bedtime bliss had arrived. Oh contraire.
Austin was staying up to finish watching a movie with his Dad and Keeve was supposed to be going to bed. He had a little plan in mind first. Pretty ingenious plan, if you ask me. His only mechanical mistake was the stretchy variegated yarn. Had he used stiffer wire or rope, it would have triggered the nozzle and sprayed Austin’s head beautifully (as well as thumped him in the head probably). Here it is, the mousse-on-the-door-frame trick. It is braced by Austin’s metal clamp for his chin-up bar, and duct taped to the wall. There is a little piece of wood on the nozzle too. Bright boy, that Keeverz.
Note the duct tape on the banister in the hall! We should have anticipated something fishy, but no. I need to teach him about hiding his weapons of subterfuge.
Tags: brothers, mom, raising boys, sabbotage, sibling rivalry, tricks
August 10, 2009 at 12:44 pm |
That’s fantastic! Keep up the good work Keeve – you will prevail one of these days!
P.S. Please don’t tell my kids I’m supporting this type of behaviour.
August 12, 2009 at 3:12 pm |
Boys sure are interesting! Are you sure you don’t want 2 or 3 more? :)
August 13, 2009 at 10:11 pm |
FOR KEEVE’S EYES ONLY – OTHERS BEWARE. Your sabbotage attempt was really quite sophisticated. If your siblings (or even parents) have a habit of sneaking around the house in the dark, here is a noisy wake-up trap that we used once. Our children developed the sneaky habit of going out to the living room in the middle of the night and turning the TV on (volume OFF). We piled three or four large pans on the corner of an appropriate counter. Tied a string to the bottom pan and across their travel path to something solid. And it worked. They pulled the pans down crawling out to the living room and scared themselves silly, and woke us up so that we caught them red handed.
August 17, 2009 at 10:39 am |
Kudos to you Keeve. I was the baby of the family too AND the only girl. My vote goes to you. ☺