War stories?!?

My father once said, parents have war stories and people without children have theories. This could not be more true.

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Psychological Torture

Our two kids could not be more different. I'm sure this is true for a lot of families. Cale is the intellectual, non-sporty child and Peyton is the partially dense, athletic one. You can really see these differences when the kids pick on each other.

Peyton always has to take things to a physical level - like hitting, tripping or tackling. Cale on the other hand, will mess with Peyton's mind. I think the psychological meanness is worse than the physical. Mostly because since Peyton isn't a quick thinker like Cale. But Peyton is downright mean and a gigantic bully (and he's the younger one).

Cale asked if he could make their lunch one day and I told him that was fine. He's pretty good at making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. When he wants to be.

Cale had had a rough day with Peyton that morning. This is what it was like: Peyton runs up, frogs Cale in the back, Cale cries, Peyton laughs, repeat with another body part frogged.

So Cale went into the kitchen to make their lunch and he finishes pretty quick then gives Peyton his sandwich, takes his own, sits down and starts eating. Cale has this weird little grin on his face. Peyton thanks Cale for making his lunch and then takes a big bite out of his sandwich. He chews twice and then puts it down, just staring at it for a minute. Then he picks it up and pulls the pieces of bread apart and finds a big surprise. There was nothing there. Cale hadn't made him a sandwich at all, just slapped two pieces of bread together. 

That is when I realized Cale was using psychological warfare to destroy his brother. Peyton just couldn't understand why there was nothing on his sandwich. It was a little sad. Peyton started crying and Cale pretended like he didn't realize that he had done that. To be honest, I really didn't blame Cale for doing that to his brother. He kinda deserved it. Peyton is just lucky that there wasn't something nasty between those two pieces of bread. The only reason that didn't happen is because I don't think it occurred to Cale to REALLY sabotage Peyton's lunch. Yet.

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