Sharing

Sometimes I am amazed at what my children will go along with just because I say so. I know I am the mom, the person “in charge” so to speak, but it still surprises me when they follow along with some of the doozies I dig up on a whim.

Like my solution to taking turns, for example. Aidan and Brennan spend most of their waking hours fighting over one toy. It’s not one specific toy, but it is just the one toy that the other happens to have fixated on, thereby created an urgent need for the other child to have that same toy right NOW. This struggle gradually escalates until someone is shouting, screaming or crying. While I manage to start off with the appropriate parental responses about the goodness of sharing, it gradually ends up with me shouting or screaming something to them along the lines of “Share that toy with your brother right NOW or neither of you will ever EVER see that toy again so help me God, do you understand?” It isn’t one of our finest moments.

But a few weeks ago, I had a whim. The boys battled over some action figure guy. (We have like a million of these damn things, but Must. Fight. For. This. Specific. Guy. is the code of children everywhere.) They ran crying to me to settle their toy dispute. I told them to take turns and informed them we will do “five minutes in mommy’s head" to determine the length of the turns.

Strangely enough, it worked. Anytime I yelled out, “five minutes in my head,” the bickering, the screaming, the fighting just ceased. Just like that. At the end of my self determined five minutes in my head, the toy wielding child would willingly turn over the toy to his brother. Huh. There is no questioning, no arguing - just total acceptance of the five minutes in mommy's head.

A few days later, a fight brewed over a matchbox car. (Yes, again, we have enough matchbox cars for every child east of the Mississippi river, but still, they must battle over this specific car! Kids are great that way.) The boys ran to me and yelled, “Five minutes in your head Mommy?” I smiled and nodded yes. Chris looked at me confused.

“Five minutes where?”

“In my head.”

“Your head?”

I smile and nod, "Do you want to try five minutes in Daddy's head?"

Although to be perfectly honest, I don't think it has quite the same ring to it.