The thing about having two boys and two girls is that sometimes the juxtaposition reaches out and punches you in the teeth.
I mean if you have boys, then you're used to boys. And if you have girls, then you're used to girls. And if you have two girls and a boy then you can't really understand why he doesn't fit in and you if you have two boys and a girl then you really can't see what she's making such a fuss about.
And if you've got some much greater combination of numbers then maybe the ages play more of a role than the genders. But when you're sitting there with 2 boys and 2 girls you have to keep your guard up.
Here's what I'm talking about... You're sitting there on a Saturday afternoon after spending the day with your daughters and you hear a grunt from the other room. You're in 'girl mode' so you don't get up to see what's going on and suddenly there's blood and gore all over your living room; because what you didn't see, what you heard without hearing, was the sound of those two boys rolling off the couch, across the erstwhile coffee-table, up against the tv and then back toward the fireplace where one of them, completely unintentionally (REALLY MOM!) smashed the other one's face into the bricks.
So you clean up the blood and the coffee table as best you can and, depending on your mood, either no one gets a time out - because they weren't even fighting, just wrestling - or they BOTH get time outs because they destroyed the coffee table and left a sanguine trail across the room.
On another day, you're sitting in the kitchen trying to do the weekly crossword puzzle. This is a disheartening endeavor because you realize you were much better at it when you were 15 than you are now. This is either indicative of the fact that parenthood and age have turned your brain to swiss cheese OR the fact that crossword puzzles take concentration and you are rarely allowed 30 uninterrupted seconds on the weekend. As you ponder this, (for 29 seconds) you suddenly hear the REALLY FAST pitter patter of little feet coming down the hallway followed by the CLOMP CLOMP of bigger feet yelling "MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!"
Before you can answer, your youngest daughter comes flying into the room with her older brother giving chase. She darts right, he follows. She circles the center island, making a U turn and is gone again. He stays on her heels. As she passed you noticed his latest LEGO creation in her hands and you add the lesson to your mental notebook: "If you want a boy to notice you, bake him cookies. If you want him to chase you, grab his favorite toy and run like hell." You wish you'd known that years ago.
Later that afternoon, your 4 year old daughter and her 5 year old brother are locked in an epic battle for control of an action figure. They both have a hand on the toy and struggle to get their other hand into position to wrench it free. They pull, they tug, they jostle, they speak harshly to each other. You think that you should intervene on her behalf; after all she's 15 months younger and he outweighs her by 25%.
"Give it to me" he yells. "No" she fires back. "It's mine." he argues. "I don't love you!" she counters.
Stung, he pauses long enough for her little fingers to gain the advantage and grab the toy. Before he can call "Mom, she said she doesn't love me!" she's gone and he's left standing there wondering what the hell just happened.
Last weekend, my daughters were playing so nicely together as they often do. Then Emily started to get a little pushy, taking Michaela's toys as well as her own. I began to intervene.
"Oh mom, it's okay." Michaela said, sounding like Mother Theresa in her magnanimity. "She can have it." she said so sweetly. And then, just as Dan and I shared a proud parenting "look" and as I was about to thank her and tell her what a big girl she was, she turned away and called over her shoulder as she left, "I have something even better." Which of course sent Emily into the perfect picture of the Loony Tunes tasmanian devil whirling down the hall after her.
Good times here at the sociology institute.
