Kids argue.  And siblings especially are prone to argue.  I know this.  They also argue about some of the stupidest things.  I have proof of this from my own childhood.  (By which I mean things my siblings argued about, not me of course.)  And while my two older kids play very nicely together for the most part, they do argue and they argue about stupid things.  Usually, I’m able to ignore it.  And sometimes, like when they fight about which of them is, in fact, the bigger “silly pie,” I’m even amused by it.  As long as no one is getting hurt, I try to let them work it out themselves.  

Kids also have beautiful imaginations.  They can become utterly lost in their make-believe worlds.  I love to watch what they will come up with next.  The other day they were running around the house pretending to take a trip.  My son was going to “Asia” while my daughter was on her way to “a hotel next to a pink house” and yet the destinations didn’t matter at all.  They were both enjoying the ride.

Unfortunately, their imaginations don’t always work so well together.  Sometimes they collide and these are the arguments I find most difficult to ignore.  Let me try to recreate a recent scene from the back of our van.  Little J has something to play with.  She decides it is a camera.  (It is actually a piece of a breast pump and it looks nothing like a camera.)
 
Y: (reaching over to her side for a moment) I took a picture of M!
J:  (sounding very indignant) I took it off.
Y:  I took another picture of M.
J: NOOOOO!
Y:  I took another picture and another picture.  
J:  I took them off!  I took them off!

By now, J is near tears and Y is frustrated that she won’t let him keep the pictures on the camera.  It is still not a camera.  And I want to know how they can both look at a small piece of yellow plastic and envision some sort of magical camera, and yet not be able to imagine that someone else’s rules don’t apply.  Now, just in case you think Y is simply torturing his little sister, let me assure you that it works both ways.

Y recently decided to make some pretend cookies.  (Chocolate chip strawberry cookies?)  He went through an elaborate show of mixing imaginary dough and putting the cookies onto a pan that did not exist.  As he was getting ready to bake them, J jumped in and, using her best cookie monster voice, said, “Yum, yum, yum.  I ate them all up!”  Y was very upset because the cookies were not ready.  He started all over mixing the dough because he had apparently used it all up on the first batch.  When they came out of the “oven,” he gulped them all down, pretending to burn his own tongue, just to eat them before J could.  She tried to eat some anyway, claiming there were some leftover, and Y started yelling, “There are no cookies!  There are no cookies!”  And that’s what I wanted to say.  

Up until that point, I admit I was getting irritated at the bickering.  I wondered how Y could possibly be so upset over something that wasn’t there and then I realized I was getting upset over nothing, too.  So I took a deep breath and refrained from pointing out the absence of cookies.  They eventually worked it out and were able to share the cookies.  

But there were still no cookies.

Mandy appears Saturdays on TriangleMom2Mom.