At least once a day, I find myself saying this to Vivian:
Sometimes, when I’m in the lecturing mood, I follow this up with this: “You’re his sister. You’re on his team. Defend him.”
Conversations like this happen after Vivian alerts me (and scolds William) about not washing his hands, practicing piano with his feet, or brushing his belly button with his toothbrush.
Sometimes, though, Vivian has the right to intervene, if not to change William’s behavior then to correct the misconceptions he has.
Last week, Vivian and William were playing in the living room after dinner. William was building an alien space jet out of Lego; Vivian was stealing all the good pieces. It was the first night we invoked our new rule: no screens for kids on Tuesdays or Thursdays. They were taking it surprisingly well, especially William, our addict in the making. I was doing dishes. I had banished my husband downstairs to watch his favourite sports team lose yet again.
So there I was, in the middle of a woman-versus-crumbs conflict, when I overheard this conversation.
William said, “When I have babies, they can watch screens all the time.”
“What do you mean?” Vivian asked.
“When I have babies,” William repeated.
“You can’t have babies,” Vivian said.
William, also known as Non Sequitur Boy, elaborated. “I mean if I were a human.”
Vivian furrowed her eyebrows and tilted her head. “You are human.”
William looked up at her, then returned to working on his alien transportation.
Vivian corrected him, “You mean if you were a girl.”
William looked up again.
Vivian attempted her explanation. “You can only have babies if you are a girl.”
My brain replayed one of the more horrific scenes in movie history: the “birth” scene from Alien.
I tossed the dishrag into the sink, my mind going places it shouldn’t.
Again.
*
First? I love that he brushes his belly button with a toothbrush. You know what they say about cleanliness. Second, maybe he just knows something about his organic makeup and that he’s not actually human.
My 6yo is constantly mothering his 11-month-old baby sister, from carrying her around, snuggling her, and telling her not to put his sneaker on her mouth. But then there was the time I actually needed him to watch her for thirty seconds, so he sat her down in front of the TV, turned it on Disney channel and ran off to play.
Your kids are a riot.
One day, when Will was 4, he was not cooperating while I was brushing his teeth. So, I brushed his nose. Well, since then, he has taken to brushing other body parts (with toothpaste) when he’s goofy. Sigh.
Laughing so hard at your son’s parenting abilities. He catches on fast. Smart boy.
Awesome morning commute post! Mark’s twin sister Marcia, who was his elder by a full 5 minutes, apparently used to ‘parent’ him often. She felt it was her duty as the oldest twin. He tried to use the TV remote to silence her but apparently the mute button was defunct most of the time.
My older brother, by 10 months, desperately needed my help too-how he ever got two pieces of Lego together when I wasn’t around is beyond me! 🙂
Great post Leanne!
Mark has a twin? Wow. I did not know. Vivian was born second, but we always say she’s been trying to make up for it ever since.
I can see you as a helpful sister. 🙂
I mothered my little brother but he needed it! I kept that child alive during his I’m-super-human-and-can-defy-gravity phase. I was definitely the more rational thinker and he was the loose cannon.
Big sister saves the day! So, are you still the more rational thinker?
No, he grew into a very rational adult. 🙂 I’m 4 years older so when we were kids that age difference was huge. Now not so much. I still find myself mothering him in small ways though, like reminding him of birthdays, Mother’s Day, etc. He loves me for it.
I mothered my younger brother for years. We swam together – where i made sure he had his suit and towel and money to get a Slushee at 7-11. We rode bikes – and I always carried Band-aids, just in case. Also, I made him really cool (and by really cool, I men totally stupid) tape recorded stories with activity sheets for him to complete. He loved playing school with me.
Then one day, Willie Wike tried to beat me up. He grabbed me by the hair and started dragging me down the street caveman-style. My little brother, four years my junior, ran up to the big kid and kicked him in the shin nd screamed, “Let go of my sister!” Amazingly, Willy let go of my hair and started to cry. My brother strutted home with serious swagger.
We never played school again.
What a great story, Renee. A serious swagger and a well deserved one. He kicked some butt for you. Not that you needed it. But it’s nice when our peeps stand up for us.
Actually, I find my 5 yr old trying to parent me. The other day she said, “I’ll only clean up if you buy me a kitty.” What in the what? Nice logic.
My 3 year old son tries to use all my best lines on me. Most of the time I manage not to laugh outloud. My 6 year old daughter is besting me in debate already. The rest of my life is going to be very interesting.
Really. How do they learn these things so quickly? I have no idea why Vivian is so snarky. 😉
Love the line: “William, also known as Non Sequitur Boy” I’ve got a couple of those boys… you pull a muscle with all the double and triple takes!
Boys are “special” when compared to their earlier developing counterparts. We catch up eventually (but never surpass). 🙂
Boys keep us honest.
I love Non Sequitur Boys. I teach Grade 8, and that is one of the few Latin Terms the kids learn from me. I hear a lot of random things in the classroom.
Oh my, I love this post.
Mostly for William’s line about “if I were human” but also because his main goal for good parenting is letting his children have unlimited access to screens.
Shoot for the stars, Non-Sequitur Boy!
(or however they say “aim big” on your planet…)
On his planet, indeed.
My two older sisters mostly just manipulated me. I don’t even want to talk about the incident with mom’s dress. But we loved each other even if they were jealous that their brother was both the baby and seemingly perfect.
What were you doing with your mom’s dress last week?
No doubt your sisters can take credit for all your good traits. But the other ones? 😉
Get OUT of my head! I just yesterday blew my stack at Matthew, the oldest: “YOU are NOT the parent here! I AM! Now kindly STEP ASIDE and let me parent!”
Who says such things to kids? Oh, yeah. Me.
I *might* have bossed my brother around a time or two. Or seventeen thousand. Adopted both, I believed that my parents got Andrew for ME and acted accordingly for most of our shared lives. I *may*have given him crap for dying too and will admit that I sometimes still lecture him, two years after his passing.
I have clearly passed the “Bossy Boots” baton onto my oldest child. Am oddly proud.
Somehow, I think Andrew likes you lecturing him, even though he no longer walks this earth. Angels can take a lot crap.
I can’t wait until my twins can provide great material like this. Funny stuff.
Thanks, Rob. The cliche is true: it’ll happen quickly.
I certainly did what I could for my baby sister, but she’s stubborn. She’ll realize that at 7, I know it all. I just have to wait for that recognition train to roll into the station. She’ll thank me and possibly throw a parade. I might even get a street in her Sim City named for me.
My 6 yo DD tries to parent the 3 yo all the time, and I’m okay with that to an extent. It saves me having to repeat myself. 🙂
Brilliant point about not having to repeat yourself. This morning I yelled upstairs and asked William if he was getting dressed yet. Vivian answered, “Yes.”
Sigh.
I’m awfully glad William is human, and that Vivian loves him enough to tell him what to do…
I think I have this discussion with Anna every day…she feels the need to control everything her sister (and I) do! I’m always saying, “What would I do without you to tell me what to do and when to do it? Oh yeah…I’d have a LIFE!”
Wendy
Please ignore the poor grammar in the above comment…I’m having a bad case of peri-menopausal mushbrain…
I haven’t even thought of Vivian telling ME what to do. But you’re right, that’ll come.
And I didn’t even notice. Not sure what that says about my brain!
He may be non sequitor, but boy can he work the subjunctive. And now I love William, too.
A person who can use the word subjunctive is a person I love!
my boys do parent one another, as twins they take turns being the “mom” or “parent”..
I think William is a genius…have babies indeed!
Not for 25-30 years though, please.
I didn’t so much parent my little brother as tackle and hold him down and tickle him until he agreed to do what I told him. A highly effective strategy – until he went and got bigger than me.
Darn those guys, getting bigger than us. It was a good strategy while it worked, though.
“Brushes his belly button with a toothbrush,” OMG, that is hysterical! I have to say I was the one to parent my sisters. I was a control freak from the moment I was born and I seriously had the bossy vibe going on. My mother was more than happy for me to be the “heavy” because that way she was the nice mom and I was just the mean sister. To this day I have both my sisters telling me, “We couldn’t stand you when we were small.” 🙂
Hilarious. You played good cop/bad cop with your mom. And I wonder: are people who blog more likely to be control freaks?
Not that I’m one. Of course not. Maybe.
Oh, I laughed out loud reading this!
I got no “parenting” from my sibling; only bruises and lots of snarky remarks. As for my kids – verrrrrrry close in age, the elder was surprisingly good about rescuing his much littler brother from the occasional bully.
Other than that, neither seemed to think they would bear children, though both have believed their (ahem) mother is an alien inhabiting another planet.
Where do kids get these strange ideas???
LOL. I’m sure that when my kids get to be teens, I’ll be the alien. Or maybe Cyclops.
Ha! Snorting good time!
I parented my youngest brother- a lot! He is 7 years younger, so he was just a real doll for me to actually do something with. By the time he was out of those toddler/early years, i was 12 and old enough to babysit. And that i did. We both get along pretty well and have similar interests to this day- whereas the middle brother and us do not.
Big sis does a lot of ‘parenting’ around here too— but none of it is by my choice! She’s a little hard to take somedays, lol! 😉
Interesting to read that. I was in a similar situation. My sister is 6 years older than me, and my brother is 8 years older than me. I’m close to both of them, partially (I think) because there was never any competition.
Somedays I wish I was human…. All my weasels have Parental Identity Syndrome, resulting in a pyramid of yelling when the Tiniest does something daft (every thirty seconds or so…) and is “corrected” by Middle Weasel, who gets verbally abised by Eldest Weasel, who then gets it in the neck from me or Mrs Dim. If the dog barks too, then you have a real party going on.
The chaos! It’s like dominoes going down.
I hear ya. Kind of. My own famn damily can be quite noisy.
Uh. “Verbally abised”. Dim invents new words. Clever Dim.
🙂
You know this already, but this blog is AMAZING. I laugh out loud every time I read one of your posts, and today I kept thinking of you as I read “The Cat in the Hat” to my daughter (she is Thing 2 of 3 in my household).
I was also relieved to know that I am not the only mother who asks my children not to bother me when I am taking my three minutes of personal time each week unless they are bleeding. (I have had to clarify that I mean blood actually dripping out, not the pinprick dots of faint pinkness that my kids come marching in to show me just as I am about to shampoo.)
You already know this too, but your kids are really, really bright. (I mean seriously, it takes a real multi-faceted thinker to discover that a toothbrush is just the right size for picking lint out of a belly button.)
Keep the good stuff coming. It makes me feel less alone in the madness of child-rearing.
Nihara, thanks so much for stopping by and commenting. Reading comments like yours keeps me sane, too.
I’m not sure my kids are really bright (we’re going for slightly above average with a sense of humour), but they’ll do. 😉
May your Friday bring you moments of peace!
My wife and I frequently remind our oldest that we’ll do the parenting of our youngest. Over time we realized we’ve been a bit unfair in this criticism because we’ve placed more responsibility on him to watch and help and in a sense “parent” the youngest.
Good to know I’m not the only hypocrite out there. 😉
I was way too smart to help my sister, cause she was like a stupid robot and I was all like “hey, go away” and she was all like “what are you talking about right now in this comment cause you don’t make sense, beepbeepboprobotvoice”
crazy but true but not true.
Thanks for the laugh, Tyler. You’ve got neurons firing pretty quickly, doncha?
And you talk robot good.
Thanks for the shout on Chase’s blog.
Hmm. Are you sincere or sarcastic? 😉
“brushing his belly button with his toothbrush.”—Isn’t that what toothbrushes are for?
For a second there, I thought your son wasn’t human. I’m glad your daughter cleared that up for me. Phew….
Maybe I did birth an alien. Damn recessive genes.
Kids – proof God has a sense of humor, right?
Got that right.
Apparently, it’s pretty common for boys to want to have babies at about this age, well and robots too.
I love that Vivienne is correcting him. So girl! **(sorry bad stereotype)
🙂 Is brushing your belly button age appropriate?
I have three older sisters. The youngest of the three is 9 years older than me. So I pretty much grew up with three extra mothers. From what I’ve been told it took all four to get me to behave. Oops…
They must have had a blast parenting you. Of course, you can now blame them for all your faults. Or you could if you had any. 😉
But now my kids try to parent me. I keep having to remind them that I am the parent. I’m too young (at least in my body and mind) for this role reversal. Truly though I love that they care enough for me to make sure that I am OK.
screens…is that a Canadian word, or am I missing something? As a dude, I’m naturally inclined to think “No screen plays. Zone defense only.”