The ongoing battle between the siblings finally started to even out yesterday. As you may remember, N has been winning these little slugfests – although I’ve had some people argue that Round 1 was actually a tie.

The other morning, N was throwing his first genuine tantrum. He doesn’t usually do this, preferring instead to get rather serious, and weirdly focussed. This time, however, he was just plain mad. Unfortunately, neither J nor I new what he was upset about. He didn’t want to be held, fed, or changed. He just wanted to cry.

So we let him.

He was on all fours in the kitchen (just a short distance from the dog’s waterbowl) crying up a storm, when C came in to see what all the racket was about. He looked at us and N, and then walked over to his little brother.

He held out his arms and said “Awwww…don’t cry. Don’t cry.”

Hearing the new voice, N looked up at him and stopped crying. J and I were thrilled. In fact, I think we might have let out a little cheer. N watched as his big brother walked over towards him – and then past him to the dog’s water bowl. We all watched as C dipped a hand into the water and flung it into N’s face. N of course started to scream again, and C ran off laughing loudly. I think that laugh may be the toddler equivalent of “Bwa-ha-ha-ha”, but I’m not sure.

In my defense, when I saw C’s hand go into the water bowl, I started to say something. J stopped me because she was still enamored of the whole “big brother helping little brother” thing she thought she was watching.

So, round 3 clearly goes to C. I’m tempted to score this one twice, because it happened directly in front of both parents and ended with him running off laughing while we all stared open-mouthed.