...And yo mama dresses you funny!

I walk out of my bedroom and into the living room to find Jack crying on the couch.  Ten minutes earlier we had all been upstairs coming up with a plan for the race track.  Jack and the gang had put together a great track for their motorized cars.  It worked perfectly except for one thing.  The cars went too fast around a corner and often times flipped off the track.

We decided to make a guardrail.  The instruction booklet showed us how to build one so I handed Jack the book and called him the project manager.  Ty (naturally better at Lego's and this sort of thing) very much wanted to help.  He hovered close, anxious to help with his fingers or nose in the way most of the time.  Austin, being two, is still in the destroyer mode, so I had him gather the pieces for the rail.  Ty did some gathering and I was hoping Jack would give him a small task to put together while he studied the instructions.

Things seemed to be under control so I went downstairs, back to my bed and snuggled under the covers to play with my current favorite app on the iPhone.  (You think I'm joking.  I'm not.  I've taken very seriously the words: "Christmas Break".)

While I was lazily playing on my phone, things weren't working out very well upstairs.  Jack has very few managerial skills other than being born first.  Austin doesn't know his colors or numbers quite well enough to be told to "find 4 short blue rods" and actually show back up with the requested items.  Ty, the poor second born who just wants to be helpful, didn't have a specific purpose.  No second born likes to be without purpose.  All we really want is to make everyone happy.... and play games on the iphone...


I ask Jack why he was crying.  He told me Ty had said some hurtful things to him. 

I asked him what things he had said and let me tell ya, they were bad.  I was so impressed with his creative insults that I wanted to record them.

Me: "What things did Ty say to you?"

Jack :  "He said that he would never climb trees with me again after the Christmas lights come down.  and he said that he wouldn't be my brother in heaven."


yikes!

After some coaching I sent him back upstairs to make amends. 

He came down less than 3 minutes later and told me that people weren't treating him like the boss (oh brother... firstborns!)

Well then let's just take a break.  You stay down here and do some work while you think about how you need to go back and respond to Ty.

Jack starts working.

Ty comes down looking all sad and climbs up into my lap (I have abandoned my bed and am now sitting at the computer typing this post) and says:  "Jack's not being nice to me."

"He's not?"  I ask.

"No.  He came upstairs and told me that you had given Austin a new job.  It was to punch me in the face."

wow.  and no.  That was not my recommended course of action.