By Stephanie Abbajay

The other day I was driving down Route 109 on my way home. Oskar and Willa were in the back, their car seats two feet apart. They were doing what siblings do, namely, aggravate each other relentlessly, and me too in the process.

In this case, Oskar was doing the “I’m not touching you” routine, which entailed transgressing Willa’s half of the sacred demilitarized zone, that space between the car seats, the middle of which marks the cut off point for each of their backseat kingdoms.

I could see them in the rear view mirror, which, in true Safety First fashion, I have trained on them and not on the road behind me. Oskar had a look of maniacal glee, of sheer unadulterated joy on his face as he reached across the Volvo’s DMZ toward his shrinking and shrieking sister, whose screams of outrage echoed off every surface in the car, including my now throbbing ear drums.

The kids were loud and they were annoying. I issued the usual parental edicts: “Oskar, stop bothering your sister” and “Willa, just ignore him.” These went unheeded, so I gave the old stand-by, the classic ultimatum: “If you two don’t stop I will pull this car over!”

They completely ignored me, so I pulled over on McCluskey Road, put on the flashers, turned around in my seat and yelled, “Stop it! My God, you two are acting like children!” The minute I said it I knew I had said a very stupid thing. And so did they.

“Mom,” Oskar said in his calm, seven-year-old how-do-I-explain-this-to-an-adult-voice, “We ARE children.” He then explained to me that this is simply how children act, that they bother each other because it’s fun. They don’t really mean anything by it, it’s just a part of their childhood and I need to just relax. I had siblings, didn’t I? he continued, and isn’t this how we acted toward each other? Willa chimed in with her sweet, three-year-old voice, “Yea, it’s OK, Mommy.”

But why, I insisted, do they act that way? Is it really that fun to annoy someone else until they scream? To pretend to poke them until they go nuts? They looked at each other, then back at me and said, “Well, yes.”

And there you have it, the episode reasoned out by a seven and a three-year old. And they are right. That is exactly how kids behave and I need to relax a little more about it. And so I did, and I found that it by ignoring it, by not giving it any attention, it made them crazy, and really, isn’t that what every parent wants?

Oskar has size and strength on his side, and so he presses his advantage by tripping his sister when she walks by, by chasing her through the house and by simply overwhelming her with his Oskar-ness. Willa, in turn, has the defense mechanism of a scream so bloodcurdling and bone rattling that to hear it is to think that a grave and mortal hurt has been perpetrated. When she lets loose with that scream, you think something terrible has happened, when in truth, Oskar has merely turned off “Fairytopia” for the third time.

But I took their advice and relaxed about it. Now, when I hear the screams and the fights, followed by the inevitable “Mom! Oskar pinched me” or “Mom, Willa knocked over Mousetrap,” I just shrug and say, “Well honey, that’s just how children act, remember?”

My lack of reaction drives them nuts, and I love it. The fights are actually decreasing (slightly, but I’ll take it.) If they can’t get my attention, too, why do it? They tipped their hands on this one and now the advantage is mine. At least for today.

Stephanie Abbajay is a columnist for the Jersey County Journal.

April 18, 2007