Locked in Battle

    In every great story the protagonist must have a rival. Sophie has Zach. They are always locked in battle. Like the great rivalries of history, Hatfields vs. McCoys, Paper vs. Plastic, Crips vs. Bloods, Cal v Stanford, Nortenos vs. Surenos, Boxers vs. Briefs... etc {you get the picture} there are periods of relative peace followed by periods of great strife. They seem to fight over anything and everything. They even once had a fight about fighting. As parents we sometimes feel like hapless UN Peacekeepers thrust into the middle of some thousand year old conflict with no end in sight. As I mentioned in my Introduction post, I am always worried that such things are unique to our children and we as parents somehow failed. I also mentioned that in talking to family, friends and co-workers I have found that all parents have these issues and Julia and I are not alone in our suffering.

     This past weekend at a family event I was reminded by my nieces and nephews that this is an age old problem of all siblings. Sophie's cousins who I will not name since they are not the subject of this blog (hint: rhymes with Ben and Anna), were also in attendance. At breakfast on the last day, Rhymes with Ben was pleading his case to his dad, my brother in law, that he was not at fault for fight the night before. He accused Rhymes with Anna of getting mad at him for not saying goodnight, a transgression he admitted to with the mitigating circumstance that he was asleep when he failed to respond to her salutation of good night, and therefore could not be deemed the primary aggressor.

      I did later ask Rhymes with Anna about the fight in order to have a balanced perspective. She said that she said good night to Rhymes with Ben and he failed to respond to her polite social offering with the expected return response of, "Good night." Rhymes with Anna said he could not possibly have been asleep because they had just turned off the lights. She took great offense at the snubbing and expressed her severe displeasure accordingly, resulting in a 20 minute fight, hence causing the deployment of the UN Peacekeepers, mom and dad.

     Rhymes with Ben's dad clearly did not want to revisit the matter, having adjudicated it the night before. In his facial expression, I saw me. It conveyed how I feel when Sophie and Zach insist on rehashing old conflicts, frequently in the middle of new fight! Although I could empathize with him, I still found the fight humorous. As my sister in law, one of the recently deployed peacekeepers, pointed out when commenting on this blog; it’s only funny when you are not the one dealing with it. So true. There was nothing humorous about the fight about fighting when we were living it. It not being your kids and/or time allows you to find humor in these sibling fights. Although there are some epic battles that are going to need a lot of time before they are funny to me, I mean a really long time.

     On a side note, Rhymes with Ben, having read my few blog entries threatened to start a blog about Rhymes with Anna, claiming to have lots of material. Rhymes with Anna in return threatened to blog about Rhymes with Ben, also stating that she has ample material. As of right now they have reached a détente of sorts, that I will call M.A.B. {Mutual Assured Blogging}.*
*For those who did not find the last line the least bit funny, look up the Cold War and M.A.D. or just click on this link: M.A.D.

Sophie's Future Home

Sophie by the Manhattan Beach Pier

We spent the last weekend in Manhattan Beach. We were there for The Tri-Mitzvah (Congratulations Mikey, Emma and Rachel, you are awesome!).  Sophie proclaimed she wants to move there.  I think it is the fact that in one block you can go from the sunny warm beach to shopping downtown!

Newton's Fourth Law

     Sir Isaac Newton clearly did not have a daughter, because if he had had a daughter he would have written a fourth law of motion. I imagine it would have read something like this:

A teenage daughter will expend the minimal amount of energy required in completing a task that a parent nagged them into completing.

     Sophie recently demonstrated proof of this law left undiscovered by a daughterless Isaac Newton when making herself some food. Notice I did not say cooking, that will have to be addressed in another entry. While preparing a gourmet dinner for herself of chips and bean dip, consisting of canned refried beans mixed with cheese and microwaved, she left out the half used can of refried beans on the counter. She was told repeatedly to put the beans into the fridge. The task was eventually completed, I am sure only after Julia raised her voice. Upon opening the fridge this is what we found (see photo).

     Yes, that is the can of remaining refried beans inside a Tupperware container in the fridge. I guess opening the drawer, taking out the plastic wrap, gauging the appropriate length of plastic, tearing it off, putting it on the can, opening the fridge, pushing the can onto the first shelf you see, and of course leaving the plastic wrap out on the counter until nagged into putting it away obviously required too great of an expenditure of energy.

     

     Like any universal law, the discovery and recognition of Newton's Fourth Law of Motion would surely have led to at least two corollary laws: 

1. A teenage daughter will not complete any task that a parent wants them to complete until they have been nagged into motion.
2. If a teenage daughter completes a task that a parent would want them to complete without having been nagged by a parent, she wants something.