You Have The Luxury Of Not Knowing What I Know

Cole and Ava have been getting annoyed by having to do things for Zachary. The two things that annoy them most are buckling and unbuckling him into/out of his car seat, and making him a bowl of cereal in the morning. Eric and I were starting to get tired of the constant bickering over whose "turn" it was to do these chores each day. They'd each whine that they "always did it" and it "wasn't fair".

One day, I the kids and I were out running errands. When we got home, I pulled the van into the garage. The usual procedure upon arriving home involved me choosing one of the big kids to unbuckle Zach, to avoid the inevitable argument. This particular day, I decided not to do that, in order to see what they would do. So I just got out of the car and walked into the house.

As I walked in, I could hear Cole and Ava beginning the argument over who was going to unbuckle him. I ignored it, and went into the kitchen. I started unloading the dishwasher, and even from the kitchen could hear Cole and Ava yelling at each other inside the car. Funny enough, Zachary wasn't chiming in. Normally he'd be yelling back at them to just unbuckle him. But it was as if he sensed that they were hanging themselves, and he was just going to sit back and watch the show.

After about 5 minutes, I heard Ava say, "I'm just going in the house, you do it". And sure enough, a minute later she waltzed into the house, shoeless, and walked right past me up to her room. She had no idea that I'd heard the whole thing. I didn't say anything to her yet, because I wanted to see how the entire situation would play out before I played my hand.

I couldn't hear anything from the van for another 5 minutes. Again, Zachary was playing this super cool, he hadn't yelled once. After 5 minutes had passed, Cole walks in with his shoes off. He says hello, and then proceeds to walk upstairs.

I let him get all the way upstairs before I calmly called them both to come downstairs. I made them both stand in front of me. I asked Colson to go unbuckle Zach, and made Ava stand there until Colson came back.

When he came back, I bent down and got real close to their little faces, looked them both dead in their eyes and said, "What you both just did was h o r r i f y i n g..........." I then gave them the leave-no-man-behind speech. "In THIS house, we don't leave our family behind, no matter how we feel about them. You don't have to like Zachary, you just have to feed him and let him out of his car seat". I told them that their behavior was disgusting. I asked them how they thought Zachary felt knowing that his brother and sister had left him all alone in the van with no way to get him out. (Of course, I left out the part about how much I knew Zachary had LOVED the whole situation, knowing somehow that it would all play out in his favor.)

I preached that the word "fair" has no meaning in this house, especially when it pertains to taking care of each other. I told them I'd wiped their butts every time they crapped in their diapers, and that certainly wasn't fair. When you love someone, you don't think about fair.

Cole and Ava were properly moved by my Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men speech. I was dying to tell them that they couldn't handle the truth, and that my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to them, saves lives. I decided that might be a bit much.



The next day I called them both into my room. I was ready to dole out my King Solomon judgement. I said, "I have made a decision about the cereal and seat buckle situation. Colson, you will ALWAYS make Zach's cereal. Ava, you will ALWAYS buckle and unbuckle Zachary. Ava, if Colson isn't here for some reason, you will make Zach's cereal AND buckle him. Colson, if Ava isn't here, you will also make Zach's cereal AND buckle him."

I haven't heard a peep about either task since.