Brotherly "Love"

We were driving home from Bend on Monday when Ezra started asking questions. "Brenton," he said. "How are you doing?" Brenton replied by saying he was good. Then Brenton asked Ezra how he was doing. "Good!" Then Ezra asked another question. "Hey Cware (loosely translated from the original "Claire")," he said. "How are you?" After each reply he asked someone else how they were doing. What a guy. Just 2 years old, but caring so much about the welfare of his siblings. And making sure the long ride home from Bend was pleasant.

But things took a turn for the worst a short time later. Somehow he and his 4-year-old brother, Eli, got in a verbal insult match with Brenton. As the head of the household, it led to a huge ethical quandry, in my mind. On the one hand, it was keeping the young lads who are prone to fussing on long trips in the car entertained. On the other hand, there was this issue of "kind words." It was all pretty harmless, but still it was the point of it all: To insult a brother. It was mostly harmless stuff about wearing diapers and other insulting remarks, all in fun and I was letting things go...maybe a little too long. Because then Eli landed a humdinger of a zinger against Brenton. I'm not sure if it's appropriate to repeat in this forum, but in the interest of "keeping it real" in the Team Sabo blog, here goes...he told Brenton he pees like a girl. Soooooo, there it is. I guess, first of all, I plead guilty to laughing out loud. I mean, talk about the ultimate insult. Telling a guy he sits down when he pees? Downright mean. So at that point I cut off the verbal jousting and said we need to find better things to talk about. Perhaps I should have done it earlier. I don't know. These are tough calls, especially in the van when I'm trying to preserve everyone's sanity and considering we had driven to Bend that very morning and it was a long day. All apologies for any offenses to the faithful readers of our handy dandy blog. And if you have any parenting advice, feel free to pass it on. I'm still getting the hang of this. Eli was only our 10th child. We have a lot to learn. Maybe after a few more we'll get it right.