With so many children in my house (and home for the summer!), it seems like there’s a fight every other minute. Research has proven that children fight 3.5 times every hour—which, I suspect, seems like every other minute to their parents.
While research tells me this is quite normal, it still doesn’t calm my shattered nerves.
Some fights, of course, are more important than others. Sometimes kids take a toy away from another kid, sometimes they’re arguing over a memory, sometimes they are genuinely trying to work out their feelings and arguing is the only way they can do it.
Sometimes they argue just to argue.
Here are some of the most ridiculous things my kids fight about:
1. How many snacks their brothers have had.
Husband and I are not the kind of parents who let our kids have multiple snacks every day. They have to wait until 3 p.m. until it’s snacking time. And when it’s snacking time, older boys get two snacks, younger boys get one.
The problem is that once Husband or I get started on dinner, the attention lags a little. And then boys start raiding the fridge. If one brother gets an extra snack, another brother wants an extra snack. They fight about who had what, how unfair it is, and how terrible this household is because they’re all starving to death.
It’s one of my favorite fights ever.
2. Who’s going to use the dish wand first.
When our boys finish eating, they are expected to wash out whatever bowls or plates they use. It’s a shame there’s only one dish wand. That means when boys finish their snacks at the same time—or, when they’re in school, they all get home at the same time—they will fight to the death about who gets the dish wand first. I should probably save myself the trouble and just get a couple extra dish wands, but what can I say? I like torturing myself.
Chores also see this delightful little argument, usually because we only have one sponge, and one boy is assigned to wipe off the counters and cabinets while another is assigned to wipe off the tables and chairs. Who’s going to do it first? Depends on who’s fastest or strongest. Because boys.
3. What color their shirt is.
Is it red or maroon, or maybe brick red? This fight can sometimes last up to twenty minutes. Every time I think they’ve resolved it, someone else will throw another color out (thank you, Crayola, for your ten thousand shades), and it will start all over again. This fight will evolve into which shade of red is the best, who has the better color judgement, and who knew their colors best at the youngest age.
What does it matter? They don’t care. They just want to fight.
4. Who put the shoes where.
If my boys are exceptional at one thing (they’re exceptional at more, but they’re really exceptional at this), it’s blaming. They will blame until they’re blue in the face (and they’ll blame someone else for turning their face blue). The most frequent place this blaming can be found is when they’re trying to find their shoes.
They put their shoes where they belong, they say. Their brothers must have moved them.
I know, however, that all of them left their shoes out by the trampoline yesterday, because, even though we reminded them to bring all the shoes inside, they were too tired after jumping for so long. When they shockingly find their shoes out by the trampoline like I said, they will point fingers about which brother is responsible for five pairs of shoes sitting outside. It certainly was not them.
5. Whose LEGO piece it is.
All my boys get different LEGO sets for their birthdays, and they will try their hardest to keep them separate. But, alas, LEGOs like each other, and it’s impossible to keep sets separate, at least in my house. And, also, the pieces for individual sets look mostly the same, with a few exceptions. So when one is holding up a plain yellow LEGO piece, and another sees it and says it’s his, they will fight about it for hours, even though both their sets came with a yellow piece exactly like this one.
I don’t know how they know whose is whose, but they believe they do. And they will not rest until they convince their brother it’s true.
6. Who turned the light on.
The rule in our house is if no one is in a room, the light must be turned off. When I mention this about forty times a day, the boys will fight over who was the first one to turn the light on, unaware that this is not necessary information to have. When I remind them that the responsibility for turning off a light lies on the last one who left room, they will fight about that, too. The one who is first in the room is the one who should turn it off, they say—he’s the one who turned it on in the first place, after all.
I’ll remind them of that when they’re in the middle of peeing and their brother, who was first in the bathroom, turns the light off mid-stream.
7. Which vitamins are better—dark or light.
We have the sort of vitamins that come in two different shades: light mauve and dark mauve. Somehow the boys have gotten it in their heads that the dark ones mean they’re bad and the light ones mean they’re good. We don’t even use this language—good and bad—around our house, but their imaginations have conjured all sorts of ridiculous realities.
If, in the random dishing out of vitamins, one boy gets two dark vitamins, he will cry like the world is ending because he doesn’t want to be bad. He will ask a brother to trade, and thus ensues yet another fight.
I think it’s time to change vitamins.
8. Who gets to sit next to the baby.
Every time we sit down to eat, our boys will fight over who gets to sit next to the baby. At home, we have assigned seating, which is much easier, but out at restaurants or when we’re eating dinner at church, this fight happens with such regularity that I can almost time it.
I, of course, need to sit by the baby in case he chokes while he’s eating. But that other place? Everyone wants it every time. They don’t realize that what usually happens during the course of a dinner is that the baby will turn to them with his messy fingers and try to touch them. They’ve even been the victims of this. It doesn’t matter. They’ll still fight over that coveted place. I guess I should be glad they love their baby brother.
9. Who is responsible for that awful smell.
This is not what you’d expect. Rather than blame the awful smell on someone else, my boys will all willingly take the blame for this one. They are incredibly proud of the smells that come out of their feet, their mouths, or their rear ends, and they will fight over who was responsible for that last one, which, if its odor cloud had a color, would be a perfect blend of green and brown.
The best thing about boys and their constant arguing is that the emotional side of arguing is over almost before it begins. Boys don’t hold any grudges or keep their hurt feelings balled up inside. One minute they’re ready to pound each other’s faces, the next minute they’re tripping each other on the floor for a lively game of “Who Can Stand the Longest.”
Which means I have a few minutes to recover before the next fight breaks out. Exactly what I need to pop a few dark chocolate squares without the scavengers noticing.
It’s the little things.
