Things Worth Fighting For

The boys have three items that they regularly fight over the possession of--The Light Blue Plate, The Backhoe Socks, and the Fire Truck Memory Tiles.

The Light Blue Plate is a cheap, plastic, picnic plate. It's part of a double set of six. It's unique only because the other light blue plate is missing. Every time the dishwasher is unloaded and the light blue plate goes back into the kids' plate and bowl drawer, Jake and Bentley fight over it. The first to open the drawer and see it, grabs it, and then loudly proclaims his possession of it, which causes the loser of that round of I've-got-the-blue-plate to become upset.

It was tiresome enough listening to the boys argue about who had used it last, but when Bentley started insisting on waiting until Jake was done eating on the plate, so the plate could be washed, and he could then use it for his meal, I decided to take action to stop the insanity. I relocated the plate to the back of high cupboard.

My mistake was trying to put it back into circulation this morning. I thought maybe they'd missed it enough that they'd be willing to take turns and wait to use it until the next time it appeared in the drawer, but no the same nonsense ensued, so back out of circulation it is.

The second, equally ridiculous, argument centers around The Backhoe Socks. A few months ago I purchased five pairs of socks for the boys that had construction vehicles on them. I have no idea why the backhoe socks become THE PAIR to wear. My favorite pair is the gray dump truck socks. Two of the pairs have three or four different vehicles--including a backhoe--on them. Why don't these pairs merit favorite status?

Every Monday when the dirty laundry is washed and put away, the battle to be first to grab the backhoe socks recommences. Bentley or Jake will grab them and announce they are wearing them tomorrow which forces me to intervene and ask who wore them the previous week. Although I can't recall who had the august honor of wearing the backhoe socks the previous Tuesday, they generally agree with each about who triumphed the previous week. So why do they fight?!

The battle over the Fire Truck Memory Tiles is the worst of the three fights because we play a couple of games of memory every day. Every game he plays Jake passionately wants to win the fire truck tiles. It's easy enough to insure that outcome when just he and I are playing, but if Bentley is playing with us, it gets ugly. Bentley doesn't see why he should surrender the fire truck tiles to his younger sibling, although he sometimes does agree to swap them out. Other times he won't and then Jake throws a tantrum.

The vehicle memory tiles were Jake's Christmas gift and he's not above pointing that out once or twice or even ten times during the game. I've tried manipulating the game when we're playing with Bentley so that Jake gets the fire truck tiles, but Bentley gets suspicious and gives me an assessing look and then becomes as belligerent as Jake about owning the tiles. Kara says I can't lose the fire truck tiles. (Perhaps I can bribe Viva to lose them for me? She's not attached to them at all.)

Sharing is fun to do, fun to do, fun to do. Oh, yeah.