The other day, an explosion of crying and shouting had me running to the playroom. I found my six-year-old on the ground, holding his head and crying.

His older brother immediately started talking. “He wasn’t listening to me! I was trying to ask him a question!”

“I said stop,” the little guy wailed. “I said it was too tight”

I held up my hands for quiet, then pointed at the little guy. “What happened?”

“He was tying a bandana on my head,” he sniffled. “But it was too tight. I said stop, stop, but he didn’t stop!”

I looked at his older brother and raised an eyebrow.

“Well,” the big guy said, gesturing with his hands to show how reasonable he was being, “he didn’t say what I should stop. I was doing a lot of things at the same time. I wasn’t just tying the bandana. I was also sitting, for example.”

I couldn’t stop a smile. “So you thought he was crying because he wanted you to stop sitting?”

“Well, no. I was also pulling his hair. When he said stop, I stopped pulling his hair. I thought that’s what he meant.”

“So you were tying the bandana too tight and pulling his hair at the same time?”

His eyes widened. “By accident,” he shouted. “It was an accident!”