Ill-Tempered Dwarves

Blame it on Monday morning. Or a busy weekend and not enough sleep. Or the phase of the moon, or the cereal they ate for breakfast. Whatever the reason, the boys were even more irritable than usual in the car this morning, making the daily commute to Princeton a disagreeable event.

"Mama! Matthew took my book!" wailed Stephen. "Give it back, Matthew!"

"Say 'please,' " ordered Matthew.

"Please! Now give it back, you darn stuny!"

"Mama! Stephen's calling me names!"

"Pipe down you two. Matthew, give the book back now."

"I don't like you, Matthew. I only like Daniel. Right, Daniel?"

Daniel didn't deign to answer. That didn't stop Stephen from speaking to his supposed ally.

"Daniel, what does H,S,U,P spell?"

"Nothing."

"It's on this button, see?" said Stephen, gesturing to his car seat. "H,S,U,P!"

"You're reading it upside down and backward, Stephen," I said. "It's P,U,S,H. Push."

"See, Daniel!"

"Be quiet, Stephen," responded Daniel, not even looking up from his handheld game. "I'm playing Connect-4."

"Hummph," Stephen grunted. "You're mean, Daniel. I don't like you, either."

Matthew interrupted, "Remember what Bambi's mother said: 'If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.' "

"Thumper's mother said that, not Bambi's!" sneered Daniel.

"OK, that's it!" I snapped. "Thumper's mother was right, and since you guys can't say anything nice to each other, I don't want you to say anything at all until we get to Daniel's school."

"But Daniel...."

"Nothing, Stephen. Not another word."

With a few disgruntled mumblings, silence fell. I hate being an autocrat, but even more do I hate listening to my sons trading mean-spirited jibes. I know life can't be all sweetness and light, but I don't think common courtesy is too much to expect from family members. Unfortunately, this sort of bickering is all too frequent in our family. "Ill-tempered dwarves," is how Tab and I privately refer to the boys when they are in this sort of mood.

Later, after returning home from Daniel's school, the twins and I took a walk around the neighborhood, enjoying the beautiful, sunny weather. I picked some of the fragrant honeysuckle that grows wild in the alley and let the boys taste the sweet nectar. They ran ahead of me gathering bouquets of clover to take home with us. We stopped by Miss Jean's house, but she must have been at her new job because she didn't answer the door. The boys left some clover on her porch for her. They also fed some to Max-the-Bunny, our neighbor's pet rabbit. I watched them crouched down in front of the fence, poking bits of clover through the links, their little blond heads side by side.

"Oops, I dropped my clover," Stephen said.

"I got it!" said Matthew, picking up the stem and handing it back to Stephen. "Here you go."

"Thanks, Matthew."

Why can't they always be that nice to each other? Well, maybe their arguments in the car make me appreciate these moments all the more.

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