Spontaneous Combustion

God has a sense of humor.

After being raised with two sisters I obviously know more about girlie things (like fixing broken fingernails and color-coordinating shirts and socks) than boy stuff (like emitting loud bodily eruptions and wrestling). So of course God blessed me with three boys, all who are currently under 11 years of age. Before you send me condolences, you should know that I also have a daughter - a thirteen-going-on-twenty-five-know-it-all sweet thing of a princess.

While I impart my feminine wisdom to my daughter, I don't quite know what I'm teaching to my boys because all they want to do is fight, wrestle, pass wind, and then giggle hysterically while fighting some more. I asked my pediatrician if this was normal and he just laughed at me.

When my sisters and I fought we did it subtly with Indian burns, pulling hair, and pinching so that Momma rarely got involved and our punishment was minimum. Boys, however, skip the pleasantries and go all out hoping for an audience.

While the tyranny of the War Between the Siblings rages on, most battles are between my oldest two boys, Josh and Nick, or as I like to call them, "Matches" and "Gasoline." As soon as they get close to each other, they ignite and make me go ballistic.

A typical fight usually starts with Gasoline watching his favorite cartoon with Matches. Matches gets right next to Gasoline - so close that you could barely put a saltshaker between them. Obviously, Matches is in Gasoline's space, so Gasoline cracks his knuckles and scoots a few inches away from Matches. Matches hates cracking knuckles, so he stretches and yawns, lightly touching Gasoline's leg (on purpose) in the process.

Gasoline's retaliates with cracking his neck and a stern, "Stop it, Josh."

Matches smirks, "Whut?"

Gasoline goes back to his cartoon and Matches tries another tack - he starts his nerve-grating high-pitched giggle. (I hate this wicked laugh of his, it's the equivalent to Chinese water torture and if Matches is ever drafted into the army, I'll recommend that he be put in some kind of special unit so that his shrill chuckle can be used for good instead of evil.)

Gasoline glares, cracks his toes and grunts, "Stop it, freak!"


Matches crosses his eyes at Gasoline and continues giggling ... louder. Gasoline ignites and starts pounding Matches who begins running through the house (giggling of course).

By now, preschooler Jake, or "Lucky Strike," joins the tussle. He doesn't take sides, but just enjoys squealing like a pig and landing a few lucky punches here and there. As usual, Lucky Strike will be struck; he'll land on his fanny and the happy squeals become hurt howls.

Enter stage left, my daughter Ashley, AKA, "Princess Punches." She's upset because the bellowing baby is interfering with her 47-way phone call. She hands Lucky Strike a sucker, puts him at a safe distance, and then smacks Matches upside his head with the edge of her foot. Next, she backhands Gasoline with the cordless phone - never breaking stride on her way to the computer to text chat with the other souls that she couldn't reach on the telephone. It's like watching a live kung fu tournament.

The boys are momentarily put off by their sister's anger (and strength), but since there's nothing else to do, Matches starts his giggling again and Gasoline pounces, bashing Matches into Princess Punches and … horror of horrors … knocking the batteries out of the phone. Lucky Strike flings his sucker and then his tiny fat fists into the fray. It's a wriggling mass of body parts.

Now I get involved, grabbing the closest things available, an over-ripe banana and paper plate for weapons. I deflect blows with my paper plate shield and threaten the kids with the banana, "Y'all stop it! Don't make me use this!"

Everyone freezes and looks questioningly at the banana in my trembling hand. Afraid of my fruity wrath, they stop the hostilities, for the moment. I've learned to bring my own weapons of mass destruction to a forced ceasefire because the last time I approached the mighty warriors unarmed, I sprained my wrist during one spontaneous combustion.

When everyone calms down, I'll be the only one that's still upset. When I sit back down to write - I get even more angrier because a) my train of thought derailed and b) there's no way to write humor when I'm spittin' mad.

Like breathing, fighting with siblings is a natural thing. When my two sisters and I argued, my mom - an only child - would cry, "Why can't you girls get along? I wish that I would've had a sister, we never would've fought!"

Yeah right. She never experienced the agony of catching a younger sister wearing her favorite shirt or the frustration of a big sister using all the hot water. Don't even get me started on sharing telephone time with two sisters.

Recently when I broke up a fight between Princess and the Flammable Brothers, I started to give Ashley the brothers-ain't-that-bad-and-I-would-never-have-fought-with-my-brother spiel, but I stopped myself when I heard Josh start his evil giggling. It's possible that if I'd had brothers, my momma would've run away from home to live in a nice padded room.

There's another lesson I learned about siblings of all kinds, they might fight, argue, slap, pinch, pull hair, and blow wind at each other, but by golly, nobody else can! They'll fight to the death if anyone dares to cross their sister or brother.

God has a great sense of humor and I know that He also has great sense!

www.southernangel.com