E3.5AllOrNothing & J6.2InteractiveGamer

Two stories from the family warfront today. E3.5's occurred first, so we'll start there.

We were at a local family-run breakfast place for dinner on Friday, and E3.5 was playing with the little container of sugar/sweetener packets. J6.2 asked if she could have one yellow packet and one pink one to play with. And she really did ask - nicely and all - instead of snatching them out of her sister's hands. It was remarkable. And in the face of this sisterly consideration, E3.5 immediately says, very calmly, "No. Mine." Now, I couldn't let J6.2's efforts at politeness go unrewarded. Here's how it went down:

Me: "E3.5, J6.2 asked nicely and you must have at least 25 of those little packets over there. Why don't you let her play with two of them?"

E3.5: "No. Mine."

Me: "If you're not going to share, then maybe you don't deserve to have any to play with either. Wouldn't it be better if you could both play with them? J6.2 usually shares her stuff with you (after having her arm twisted and a contract filled out in triplicate stating what is being shared, for how long, how it may be played with, the condition it will be returned under and what is being used as collateral)."

E3.5: *silence*

Me: "You don't need all of those and you can't play with all of them at once anyways. She only wants two. Either give two of those packets to J6.2 to play with or I'm taking all of them away from you. It's your choice."

With no change in expression whatsoever, she packed them all back up and handed the container to me. J6.2 got all of them to play with, but E3.5 didn't care. She was perfectly happy just knowing that she hadn't given in to the Man, and had left the field under her own terms.

Now for J6.2's story. Just before school started back recently, she was at home with me for the day and wanted to watch my computer game for a bit and have me explain what was happening to her. I had decided to pull Heroes of Might and Magic V off the dusty shelf and play it a bit, and I was currently working on the Undead portion of the campaign. I was about 3 scenarios in and getting a bit tired of these particular troops. But I put it on and proceeded to educate her about the differences between wights, wraiths and banshees on the upgrade tree. Then we went to meet her dad for lunch with some of his work pals. She completely ratted me out. "Mom and I had fun this morning, but we're really tired of the undead units, and our banshees aren't kicking as much butt as we'd hoped they would." Or something to that effect was what she said. Thanks kid. Now, in my defense, she read all the game messages, and I quizzed her on the numbers that came up, like "Victory is yours! Defeated units: 436 peasants, 116 crossbowmen, 32 paladins, etc" I'm sure it was a very educational experience for her.

So anyways, yesterday she was watching a multi-player game of Heroes V that my husband and I were playing and it was my turn. Yellow was nearby and I clicked on their army to see what I'd be fighting. J6.2 took one look, shook her head and muttered, "Oh, holy hell." I kid you not. Now, it's entirely possible that she learned that from me except that I've been super-careful with the cursing around them. I was about 95% sure it wasn't me. I found out later, it was the other big kids at the daycare. We explained to her why she shouldn't say it and blah blah blah. She went on her merry way, and the hubby turns to me and says, "Where in the hell did she pick up holy hell?" That's one of the best things about him. He makes me laugh and has a good grasp on the absurd.