Times Two

We're on vacation with the wife's immediate family this week, in a lovely oceanfront house. That means Owen is spending a ton of time playing with his cousin, who is about 6 months older than he is. When we arrived on Saturday, I think it took about 3 minutes before the first fight erupted over a toy.

There is a school bus that the grandparents bought to keep at their house for the boys to play with when they came to visit. The bus is hugely popular because it's new every time and makes a lot of noise when you run screaming around the ceramic tile floors with it. The cousin was probably playing with it when Owen decided it was his turn. Lots of grabbing, crying, and pulling on the desired toy.

What was bizarre about the situation is that there are five (FIVE) buses here at the beach with us. They never want to play with one of the other four, just the one the other has. Even if both of them have a bus in each lil' fist, there is still one left over.


If only I could find a school bus to play with!

So far this week, we've had to break up epic fights between them over Thomas the tank Engine, a Hess truck, a small boat, various cars, dumptrucks, and, of course, whichever bus is fashionable at the time. Thankfully, we've been able to contain it with threats of timeout and the old, "It's his turn to play with it, it will be your turn in a little bit."

They have had a blast together and watching the peaceful little interactions has been really interesting. As I write this, they are in the cousin's room sounding like they're destroying something. Since it's in the cousin's room, I don't think I have jurisdiction and I'm not going in there. My sister-in-law just went into the room and said to them, "No, don't throw things at the fan." Ah, that's what that breaking sound was, sounds like an interesting experiment for two inquisitive little boys.

Yesterday, about dinner time, they found a 1,000 piece puzzle in a drawer and worked well with each other to open it up and start putting the puzzle together*.

* - Throwing it up in the air and pouring pieces over each other's heads.

When it came time to put the pieces back in the box, Owen was VERY helpful. When you got 100 or so pieces in there, he tried to pour it over his cousin's head. Both boys had to go to timeout while the puzzle was cleaned up and placed well out of reach.

Their favorite game at the moment is jumping on the air mattress in the cousin's room while one yells "A poo poo!" while the other yells, "Stinkies!"

I'm sure by the end of the week, we'll be sharing toys like champions, we'll have stopped screaming at the top of our lungs in a high-pitched voice in the house, and we definitely will not have broken the side of the couch next to the kitchen table by pushing on it too much.

CK

Updated: Within 5 minutes of posting this blog, they were fighting over a bus because one of them picked it up out of the lineup I created for the picture.