Cooling Off Period

This evening, after supper, took the kids outside, ostensibly to water some plants that were wilting in the heat. But Malcolm was so excited he jumped into the way of the hose . . . I think he wanted to see if his swim goggles would protect his eyes from the spray. Pretty soon we were all taking turns chasing each other with the hose. We came up to the porch soaked and generally happy, and Janet brought out watermelon.

The respite in sibling conflict was so nice I decided to keep it going. We did baths separately instead of together . . . they can't fight if they're not together. They even managed to do some careful negotiations over toys: Malcolm gave up the favorite fox in exchange for a snow globe and a dinosaur to be named later.

I remember that my twin brother got along much better with my parents after he was out of the house a few years. Sometimes less is more.