onetiredmama: Cats and Dogs

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While Riley says she's a cat, she's as stubborn as a mule and bites like a dog. And of course, Jack is her favorite target.

She has unleashed her chompers on more victims to date than Jack did during his entire baby-biting years. She bit him through his shirt and you could see each one of her little teeth etched into his skin. No blood -- but close. He was left with a huge bruise that he shows to everyone, even strangers at the store. He'll roll his sleeve up past his elbow to the scene of the crime and grimly announce, "Look -- my sister bit me." He laps up the sympathy like a thirsty Labrador. I think he's disappointed the bruise and bite marks are fading away; he's gotten a lot of mileage out of them.

After another recent attack of the baby bicuspids, we insisted she say she was sorry. She would not -- until 15 minutes of being held on my lap had elapsed. Then out popped a tiny and very insincere "Sorry!"

That's our little mule! And what was his crime deserving of these bites? Merely having the nerve to be her brother. Don't worry. They have a full arsenal of weapons for their toddler wars. He gets in the sly pinch or poke when he thinks we're not looking, while she's more brazen with her slaps and shoves. This biting/pushing/pinching/kicking is all just part of their sibling rivalry/revelry and I say revelry because the fighting must be fun, they do it so often.

And these two fight about EVERYTHING, verbal barbs being their most often used weapon. Here's a typical go-round. There's a radio station in town called JACK FM. So we'll hear the announcer say, "This is Jack FM," and Riley screams, "No, it's Riley FM!" Then of course Jack pipes in, "No, it's Jack FM," and we're off to the races. Or Riley announces she wants to watch Spongebob. Jack says, "Yes!" She automatically says, "No!" to her original idea just to spite him!

"I don't want to be your friend ANYMORE!" declares Jack. "I don't want to be your friend!" Ahhh. Good times. So I ask Jack, "Why do you and Riley fight? What do you fight about?" Jack laughs. "I don't know. Root beer?" I'm sure they have indeed fought over root beer; who wants it; who doesn't, or who took whose glass of it. All of this leads me to say ridiculous things with absolute authority in my voice, like "Jack you are not the king of the yogurt, let Riley have some," or, "Riley, tell your brother he is not a pickle."

This is all new to me. I have two younger brothers and we are each 4 years apart. It's a wide enough age range that the sibling rivalry was negligible. I think once my brother Bryan got in a karate stance as if to kick me, but that was it. Even my two younger brothers never really "got into it." Sure, we had disagreements and skirmishes, like when my youngest brother poured talcum powder into my aquarium and killed all my fish. I yelled and cried, but there was no hitting.

Now, Pat and his sister are a different story.

They're a year and a half apart and have many funny fight stories which they seem to recall with glee, not anger. And to this day they have a little contest to see who can slap the other one last before saying goodbye. Pat thinks it's a little freakish that my brothers and I didn't fight like cats and dogs.