Brotherly love

It happens pretty much daily here. Walking by, I’ll catch a fragment of a conversation that brings my shoulders up around my ears. Because I am the Momma, I will immediately whirl and ask, “What’s up? What’s going on here?” And nine times out of ten, I will be told a sob story that centers on how he took my this, and she won’t let me do that, and it’s my turn to do it and he won’t let me!

And I step in, and I walk them through resolution and reconciliation, and we all move on. Because that’s how a family works, right?

Recently though, I’ve had my ears pricked again and again by the voices of my two oldest boys. At 16 and 14, they’re beyond the “he took my toy!” stage. Instead, what I might hear is this:

“Look, these are the Solomon Islands. Don’t touch them. And this is Australia. Don’t touch it. And this is Brazil. Don’t touch it…”

Brotherly love

That was exactly the overheard conversation Saturday, as I sat in our barn finishing a project that has taken far too long (pallet board sign; finally finished) and enduring the Axis and Allies game going on just behind me.

“Oh, I’m going to touch them. I’m taking them all. This will be a blood bath,” was the reply.

And guys, it only got more encouraging.

After several rounds of pointing out each other’s holes in strategy, I was treated to a litany of their former game fouls, which each seemed to have memorized about the other. So much for building one another up, huh?

It was exactly, perfectly the kind of thing that makes a mother lose her everloving mind, and after a few minutes, I broke.

“Seriously? No one is making you play together. Just stop if you don’t want to play! And I think it’s time for a serious conversation about how you two are talking to one another.”

Deer in headlights.

Both boys looked at me, slightly confused and not a little bit horrified.

Finally, Mathaus broke the silence, as I sat there on my overturned bucket, seething at them from behind a paintbrush.

“We, um… we’re not fighting.”

“What?” I asked, indignant. “The two of you have sat there for half an hour poking and throwing barbs.”

More silence. Then:

“Um, mom. That’s how we play.”

Brotherly love

 

And then they went back to it, happily. They spent about five hours reliving WWII and experiencing the thrill of world domination, trading smack talk and otherwise acting like buffoons. At the end of it all, they slapped one another on the back, congratulated the globe on having survived them one more time, and went off to throw frisbee together.

Just like that.

Which reminded me, once again, how little I really know about men and boys, and how much I have to learn about parenting these bigger kids. Because apparently, what sounds like a brewing storm is sometimes just a little dose of brotherly love.

 

You can buy the above Axis and Allies version below. (Affiliate links) Our boys have two separate games and often play them at the same time for a real “world war” effect: