Chapter Eight: Sibling Rivalry (Welcome to the Thunderdome)​​​

 

     I once believed my children would wake up one day and decide they liked each other. All the parenting manuals said they would. The books assured us sibling conflicts were a healthy, natural phase all brothers and sisters went through as part of the process of gaining maturity.

 

     I once also believed in Santa Claus. After Jack turned three, I threw away most of our parenting books, using the ones I saved as book stops for our more useful publications, like the book on French cooking Alma gave me when she had no other ideas for our anniversary.

 

     I no longer believed the parenting books because they are filled with platitudes – nice-sounding ideas like letting your older child help change a diaper or refraining from stepping in between when your children are having a spat.

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     I noticed the books always referred to spats or quarrels - strangely archaic terms, at least in my household. My kids didn’t get into spats, engage in conflicts, or have quarrels. With Jack and Emily, it was always a fight, a wrestling match, or some other form of mortal combat.

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     Regarding diapers, the thought of Emily changing her brother’s Pampers also seemed ludicrous. Alma and I raised the topic on multiple occasions, but those discussions typically ended with Emily holding her nose or making otherwise contorted facial expressions.

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     While their battle had seemingly gone on forever, even I had to admit it hadn’t always been that way. If I had to name the occurrence that started things off, it would have been the great headless dog incident - the combat highlight of our previous year.

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     It was just after Jack’s second birthday, and the event included a significant increase in his mobility - the boy who once crawled everywhere now running through the house with the speed of a young Usain Bolt. Beyond the usual complications, that change meant Jack’s gift for dismantling objects now spread to the full range of our home. With the creative use of baby gates, Alma and I grew used to corralling our son, eventually reaching a competence that would have made any rancher proud.

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     As pleased as we were over our efficiency, even the best systems suffer an occasional breakdown. The most traumatic of these occurred when Emily mistakenly left the door open to her room, an oversight Alma and I overlooked one weekend afternoon.

 

     Emily’s scream alerted us to our error. Rushing upstairs, we spotted Jack sitting on Emily’s floor. All looked well until Emily pointed to her pillow.

 

     It wasn’t so much her pillow but the object sitting next to it. Resting comfortably near the edge of Emily’s mattress was the head of Emily’s favorite plastic dog. The dog was a present from my sister on the occasion of Emily’s own second birthday, a gift Emily had cherished ever since. Now my son had used it to pull off a scene from the Godfather. I didn’t know whether to be appalled or impressed.

 

     Alma and I scoured the floor. While good at taking things apart, Jack wasn’t quite so good at hiding the evidence. We found the headless dog’s body just under the rear of Emily’s bed. Attempting to repair the damage, I grabbed both pieces and managed to fit them back together with no difficulty.  

 

     While I was reanimating Emily’s plastic dog, Alma scooped up Jack, both to shield him from Emily’s wrath and ensure he didn’t dismember anything else.

 

     I handed Emily back her puppy, but she was still less than pleased. Pointing to Jack, she begged, “Can’t we put him back?”

 

     I considered her request. “That would be difficult. We’d have to figure out some way of inserting him into Mommy’s stomach, and then she’d get all fat and cranky again. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”

 

     Emily gave Alma a long look, likely weighing the alternatives. Alma then spoke, the single voice of sanity in an insane household. “Alan – don’t stir her up. We are not putting Jack back anywhere. We just need to remember he can walk now, and that means he can get into pretty much anything. Emily – try to keep your toys on your upper two shelves where Jack can’t reach them. “And Jack,” she said crossly, staring at him as she did so, “you stay away from stuff that isn’t yours.”

 

     Jack had a limited, two-year-old vocabulary, but “yes, mom” was within his range. Alma turned her attention back to Emily, but I noticed a slight roll of Jack’s eyes as she did so. Pleased with himself, my son would return to mayhem as soon as we turned our backs. This situation required stronger measures.

 

     “Jack, if you take apart another of Emily’s toys, I’ll give her one of yours and let her have at it.”

 

     If Dr. Spock were still alive, my words would have killed him. Emily looked pleased, almost looking forward to her brother’s next transgression. Jack simply looked down at the floor. The kid was smart – maybe he was wondering if he could pick the toy.

 

     Alma’s eyebrows raised slightly, but she kept a stern look for Jack’s benefit. Our son realized there would be no absolution with either parent. We had bought ourselves some time, but I wasn’t foolish enough to think our reprieve would last.

 

     As it happened, it lasted a week. While Jack now limited his dismantling to items non-Emily related, Emily still felt her brother required a more proactive stance. From that point on, she alerted Alma and me when Jack came within three feet of her room. As Emily’s door was outside our second-floor bathroom, this was a difficult area to avoid.

Emily’s early alert system also had another unforeseen effect – Jack realized he didn’t have to touch his sister’s things to annoy her. A long look in the direction of one of Emily’s toys would do the trick quite nicely.

 

     As the kids’ new primary caregiver, this was the dynamic into which I would be stepping. At first, I tried making my children’s dysfunction into a game. If Jack and Emily couldn’t stand to be in the same room together, I would divide the house into zones, an equal number designated for Emily and Jack. Our household became a giant game of Risk, with the kitchen, bathrooms, and TV room serving as neutral territory.  

 

     Unfortunately, my plan worked too well. The need to travel from one designated zone to the next occasionally required passage through enemy territory, necessitating a certain amount of negotiation on the kids’ part. As these deals turned more Byzantine, the TV room alternated from Switzerland to Casa Blanca.

 

     At first, the kids thought deals were fun and grownup - you can play with my firetruck for fifteen minutes if I can walk through the hallway that leads to the bathroom. Eventually, the sheer number of proposals and counterproposals became too numerous to remember, leading to more arguments than before my solution took effect. I put an end to the room zone gambit just two days after it started - Emily and Jack each blaming the other for its quick dissolution.

 

     Realizing diplomacy was useless, I then tried Machiavelli. My kids needed a common purpose. If such a purpose didn’t present itself, a common enemy would do just fine. The answer was right in front of me, or more precisely, right across the street.

 

     Aidan Wyatt was a seven-year-old sociopath-in-training who lived a few houses farther down our block. Every neighborhood has an Aidan Wyatt, and every adult grew up with one. He was the kid who pushed smaller kids down and tried to steal their toys, the kid who spent his entire Halloween trying to grab extra candy from treat bags held by smaller children.

 

     My kids had run into Aidan once while playing on our front lawn. Sitting on the porch holding Jack, Alma was watching like a hawk while a then four-year-old Emily played target practice using her dolls and a tiny plastic toy water pistol.

 

     I heard the whole story from Alma after I returned from work. As she watched Emily mowing down her quarry, Alma noticed a second, much larger jet of water smack our unsuspecting daughter on the side of her head. Stunned, Emily fell to the grass while a short devilish-looking child with long blond hair and a premature potbelly stood laughing across the street.

 

     Alma started moving towards Emily almost immediately. Unaware of Alma’s presence, Emily’s antagonist ran towards Emily, intent on stealing a second water pistol.

 

     His concentration fixed; our little sociopath never noticed Alma bearing down like a mother lioness on steroids. Arriving first, the kid reached for Emily’s gun but somehow never quite got there. Spun around by the arm on his shoulder, he dropped his own gun, a Super Soaker likely designed for adults.

 

     Alma admitted she wasn’t proud of what she did next. Picking up the Soaker, Alma did the first thing she could think of – she aimed and fired.

 

     Fortunately for any potential lawsuits, my wife aimed at Aidan’s chest. That being said, the blast was still powerful enough to knock the kid over onto our lawn. With our daughter’s adversary now lying prostrate, Alma pressed her advantage.

 

     “You like trying to bully little girls, kid?”

 

     Stunned at the sudden turn of events, our overweight intruder wisely said nothing. Still holding the Soaker, Alma emptied the water reservoir on the back of the gun. That job accomplished; she handed the kid back his weapon with one last admonition.

 

     “I’m guessing it doesn’t feel good when you’re the one getting hit. You ever fire that monstrosity again at my little girl or try to steal any of her toys, I’m going to take a sledgehammer to that gun, and that’ll be the last time it ever fires.”

 

Whether due to fear or shock, Aidan still didn’t move. Alma finally grew impatient. “Kid, get the hell off my lawn.”

 

     He got the hell off remarkably quickly for a child of his bulk. Asking around the neighborhood, Alma learned the kid’s name was Aidan Wyatt; his parents never showed up for neighborhood events, and no one trusted the kid any farther than they could throw him.

 

     When Alma first told me of the encounter, I couldn’t help but be impressed.

“It’s like I’m married to Ripley, and I’m talking about the “Aliens,” kick-ass Ripley.”

 

     “Just don’t expect me to drive a power loader.”

 

     Aidan kept his distance for the better part of a year, though we occasionally saw him scowling from the safety of his front yard. In March, two months into my shift as a stay-at-home parent, we finally ran into young Aiden again.

 

     It was an unseasonably warm day in early Spring. Hoping for a pause in their latest bout of sibling rivalry, I took the kids to the small park a short walk from our home. Piling Jack and Emily into their red Radio Flyer wagon, we walked to the park, and I sat on an unoccupied bench.      

 

     My focus on Jack; I was only paying partial attention to Emily, enjoying herself on the swing set to Jack’s right. For that reason, I never noticed Emily’s archenemy, the rotund Aidan Wyatt, sneaking up from directly behind.

That changed when I heard Emily yell. Shifting my attention, I saw my daughter lying face down in the dirt. Her attacker’s arms extended; it didn’t take a genius to figure she had been shoved. I started to get up just as the Wyatt kid began to climb into Emily’s now-vacant swing.

 

     As things turned out, he never got there. Facing the swing set, I saw Wyatt topple forward and fall into the dirt next to Emily. A second later, I understood why.

 

     It was Jack coming to his sister’s rescue.  Alerted as I was by Emily’s scream, Jack had run from the nearby sandbox and gave Emily’s attacker a shove. Jack being Jack, he didn’t stop there. Running forward, I saw him jump onto the still-prone figure of Aidan Wyatt and take a well-aimed swing at the back of the kid’s head.

 

     I arrived right at that moment and intercepted Jack mid-punch. While doing so, I missed Emily, no longer on the ground, as she jumped on her attacker’s back. Emily managed one punch, more of a shove, really, before I pulled her off Wyatt as well.

 

     Stunned at the turn of events, young Aidan managed only two “heys” before rolling over to face us. Seeing the look on his face, I couldn’t help laughing.

 

     “You want to watch who you try and push around, kid. You just got beat up by a five-year-old girl and a three-year-old boy.”  Looking at my two kids, both equally furious, I added, “You want to stay away from the Lister family. We can be pretty tough when we need to be.”

 

     He finally found his voice. “You’re the husband of that crazy lady.”

 

     “She is crazy, kid. And you don’t want to come near these two - they’re as crazy as she is.”

 

     I then gave my best evil laugh, the one I used with the kids on Halloween. Aidan took off running, and it finally occurred to me I should look around for his parents. Once again, they were nowhere to be found.

 

     I turned back to my children. Emily finished working her way off the ground with her brother offering a hand up. Emily took it without complaint, and the three of us walked home with me pulling the now-empty wagon.         

I knew there would be more arguments, but I still hoped the two had a newfound appreciation for each other. Common enemies are helpful that way.

 

     When I told all this to Alma that evening, she added one more worry to my ever-growing list.

 

     “You don’t suppose the idiot has some sort of crush on our daughter?”

 

     Having been that young myself, I had to admit it was possible.

 

     Considering our options, I said, “You’re always saying we should do more things as a family. Doing away with the moron kid down the street would fit the bill just fine. It’s perfect – Jack can even jimmy their backdoor lock.”

 

     “So you want to strong-arm some pre-teen kid?”

 

     I was willing to be fair. “Only if he wants to date your daughter.”

 

     “That sounds remarkably like what my mother suggested the first time she met you.”

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     I hadn't heard this one. “What made her change her mind?”

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     “Who said she ever did?”