It’s a fairly routine occurrence that something so uniquely petrifying happens. However, it’s not often that you have a chance to write it down. Typically, those random occurrences happen at times when you don’t have the opportunity to even scribble it down in some sort of legible and comprehensible format. Because of that, I usually have to rely on my less-than-reliable memory of the context hours and sometimes days later. My recall then comes into question and I can leave out some integral piece of the story so that during the retell, it makes absolutely no sense.

No worries about that tonight as I’m writing in raw format from something Son #2 did and the effect it left on my wife, myself, and unfortunately for him, Son #1. Now I’ll most likely post this entry a day later, but imagine for a moment you’re in our home, after dinner, on a sunny early evening. The boys have just finished playing outside and I’ve finished tuning my bike in the garage.

To set this up appropriately, I must also set the emotional mood of the evening. An hour earlier, following dinner, which by the way Son #2 wanted nothing to do with, my wife made smores for our consumption in the warm summer air. During this sunset in July, Son #1 and #2 lost their collective minds while eating smores. I don’t mean they were on a sugar high and bouncing off lawn furniture or fence posts. What I mean is that they lost it when melting chocolate and marshmallows oozed onto their manual extremities. You see, neither child likes ‘stuff’ on their hands. With melted, albeit not hot, chocolate on their hands, both kids screeched for help and napkins. Son #1 proclaimed his hatred for such a camping desert. Son #2 bee-lined to the hose and begged for it to be pressurized with water to cleanse his hands.

Keep in mind that both of these children will paint themselves and submerge themselves in mud puddles. So I wouldn’t have expected such an extreme reaction from a confectionary delight such as chocolate, let alone the camping delicacy known as a smore.

So let’s fast forward to bedtime. Both boys know the drill. When it’s time, it’s time. Arguing isn’t allowed but this never stops Son #1 from throwing a fit which I can only equate to spasmatic fish flop like bamboo chutes were under his nails and hot sauce was doused in his eyes. Instead, it’s just the catalyst of bedtime causing the disturbance. Now he’s hungry. Now he’s thirsty. Now he has a sore throat. Now the birds are chirping. Now the garage door is open. The list of reasons goes on. But after we interrupt and let him know that no excuse is going to alter our edict for bedtime, he loses his flipping mind. Remember my description of the fish flop above? Imagine that in a spare bathroom on the cold hard floor. Flailing, he lists his excuses and falls into an unintelligible crying and screaming fit. As he stumbles out of the latrine, Son #2 watches by innocently. Clearly the gears are turning. And then it happens.

Son #2 saunters up to Son #1 while he’s in his strike against being tucked in. And at that moment I honestly thought Son #2 was going to exhibit some sort of compassion for his older brother and console him during the outburst. I couldn’t be more wrong. Son #2 casually approaches in his best I’m-not-going-to-do-anything-wrong posture, stops and points right in his screeching brother’s face and says, “Faking it!”

Son #1 yells back that he’s not. Undaunted by the volume of Son #1 and the threat of dismemberment, Son #2 repeats in the same tone, “Faking It!” At that moment, the wheels fell off and Son #1 began swinging. Nothing connected except for his ass onto a common location in our house for time-outs. Again, Son #2 says, “Faking it!” If it weren’t for Son #1 trying to get all Sugar Ray Leonard on Son #2; I probably would’ve pissed myself. My wife took the younger boy upstairs for bedtime, as passed his older brother; he said it one more time. This left me with a combustible screaming and crying six year old whose feelings are now hurt and his throat is sore. Again, Son #1 makes excuses why he can’t go to bed and how he needs a snack. And in the distance from a floor and rooms apart, I hear the faint, “Faking it!” from Son #2. Here we go again.
With what felt like a month of trying to defuse Son #1, I’m left to just chuckle at Son #2 and his unique ability to push the right buttons on his brother. Son #2 is a jack ass. And I mean that in the most complimentary term of endearment. He couldn’t be any more like me. And while I’ve written a ton about Son #1 here in this entry, you can’t escape the fact that Son #2 is great at getting under your skin. He has the innate gift of something that will piss his brother off. I’ve heard him say things like “Angry!” to provoke his older brother but this was the first time I’ve ever seen him use a diversionary tactic of innocent compassion and approach within striking distance to point right in his older brother’s face and say something as aggravating as “Faking it!” in such a sweet high pitched voice like only a 2 year old can do.