Boy to the World: I Hate You! Wanna Play DS Download?

I will never leave you nor forsake you. ~Joshua 1:5 NIV

 

“I’m never gonna let go of you no matter what!” my middle son avowed to his younger brother. We were packed into our car with a friend and his children on the way back from a three-story indoor playground, which oh-by-the-way also has video games, bowling, and amusement rides where we had spent the better part of a rainy afternoon. The visit had brought out the best and worst in the kids, and by the time I insisted we had to leave now, two thirds of my offspring had told me (one more than once), “I hate you, Mommy!”

There was considerable ado about the seating arrangements. Our sporty station wagon can seat seven passengers, but not as comfortably as a mini van. I had to configure and reconfigure, in order to accommodate my youngest who had collapsed on the wet ground in the parking lot when I insisted he walk the rest of the way to the car after having hauled him away – writhing like a sack of octopi – from all the riveting fun.

When he refused to buckle his seat belt in the car, or keep it buckled when I strapped him in, I asked the kids to rearrange themselves once again. “I need you,” I said to my middle son. Our eyes met and he sighed and groaned as he swapped seats with one of our guests, because he understood my innuendo. I was requesting that he sit next to his brother and hold the seat belt to prevent it from being unbuckled.

My youngest wept and wailed and gnashed his teeth and tried to convince us all that his brother was hurting him; that he couldn’t breathe. He howled, he moaned (thus I was sure he could, indeed, breathe). “Click it or ticket,” my middle son maintained. The tension in the car was thick; our communal anxiety was high. I could tell by the fact that even the children in the way-way back were silent. I had given up on playful banter, trying to reason with my youngest, or attempting to cajole anyone in favor of simply driving the car safely: we were on a winding backroad with no streetlights and lots of mist after the day of rain. I reached back to put my hand on my middle son’s knee, shoring him up for what I was sure was an especially unpleasant task for him.

My youngest was still carrying on; I was concerned that he was going to hyperventilate, and might not be the only one. I glanced in the rear view mirror to see my friend’s daughter nervously leaning as far away from the wrestling duo as she could, looking panic-stricken.

“God, just let me get to a safe place to pull over,” I prayed.

Just when our collective crisis was reaching a crescendo, I saw the school crossing sign. I pulled into the school driveway. “Okay, everybody out,” I ordered, “let’s take a break.!”

As the car doors opened, the pressure dissipated. The three oldest boys took off hooting and hollering like banshees into the dark night, down the driveway towards the school parking lot. My friend and his daughter walked behind them, his arm around her shoulders. I sat with my youngest and just held him and rocked him until he stopped crying. Neither of us said anything.

Then: “Honey, your brother and I love you very much. That’s why we want you to wear your seatbelt.”

“I know, Mommy.”

Before we all got back in the car, I thanked my middle son.

“He’s such a baby sometimes!”

“Yes, you’re right, he was acting small…and thank you for not calling him that.”

My boys can be thick as thieves or wish they “didn’t even have a brother!” Yet often when I insert my presence into their disputes, they turn on me: “Don’t you put my brother in time out! You’re a mean mom!” Never mind that this boy could have been getting whacked, kicked, poked, looked at the wrong way or otherwise taunted moments before by the very one he is now protecting.

Their verbal game of king of the mountain began from the moment they could form complete sentences.

“I have a cack-u-layta, you-ooh-ooh doh-ohn’t!” my oldest had said to his younger brother, long before my youngest came along and certainly before either of them knew what a calculator was.

“Ma ma ma ma…I wanna cack-u-layta!”

“But you-ooh-ooh doh-ohn’t!” his brother reminded him.

“Ma ma ma ma…wuzzah cack-u-layta?”

Not long after that, I had said, “Boys, look at the excavator!”

“Where?” they both perked up in their car seats.

“Look out the window on the passenger side!” (where my youngest at the time was sitting.)

“Oh, wow!”

“I can’t see it!”

“Nah nah neh nahnah, you dih dint thee it!” Revenge was sweet.

Today the three of them are constantly scrapping to see who can do even the most mundane things first! Better! Faster!

“I win!”

“No, I win!”

“No, I do!”

“No, me!”

“Nuh uh!”

“Uh huh!”

“Yessah!”

“Nossah!”

Repeat.

Repeat.

Repeat with physical contact for emphasis.

My oldest has become sophisticated in verbal sparring. Unctuously, he’ll ask, “You don’t mean me, do you, mom?” in reply to my “I think I’ll go nuts of you boys don’t stop _______________________ (fill in the blank)!”

Or rather than saying, “I wish you were never born!” (which my middle still says to my youngest), my oldest will say – so all can hear, “Mom, what do you think it would be like if I were an only child?”

Early on, I did have twinges of guilt over how I could “ruin” my oldest’s life by having more children or how could I shove my middle out of the nest by having another baby. Then I’d recall something my mother once told me: “One of the best things you can give your child is a sibling.” Indeed, having my second and third sons made it clear to me that when there are more people to love, love is multiplied, not divided.

The love of God flows easily through my boys. For example, my middle son, as a baby, every morning when I lifted him out of his crib would press his face against mine almost until it hurt, eyes boring into mine soulfully, mouth open against my nose, razor-sharp teeth grazing my skin as he lovingly stroked my back. At night he would cling so tightly that I could use both hands to get his toothbrush ready after bath without having to put him down.

At age two, he’d bowl over his older brother in a jubilant embrace. From beneath the sprawl, I’d hear a muffled, but not really wholehearted, complaint, “Too much love, Baby, too much!”

And now to his younger brother, “I’m never gonna let go of you no matter what!”

This is why – though we’re still working on not saying it – I know deep down they don’t mean the “H” word. Brotherly love appears to be a special kind of adoration; the kind where there’s room for both (inhale) “I hate you” and (exhale) “Wanna play D.S. download?”

The mother of three sons, Caroline Poser lives with her family in Massachusetts. She works full-time as a software marketing professional and moonlights as an author. For more information: www.CarolinePoser.com