Brothers and sisters fighting and bickering—it’s not funny—but yet it is. Some of my siblings fondest memories were made fighting and pestering each other. I spent a whole day at home with both of my kiddos together and I couldn’t help but chuckle at the little rascal baby’s antics and his princess sister’s dramatic shrieking.
It goes like this…Big sister lays on the living room floor, directly in the path of a stumbling toddler. He steps on her hair, she screams, he screams louder. She keeps whining and he starts hopping around and chanting—bobbing his hand on and off of his mouth yelling—Hi-yah, yah, yah, yah, yah, yah, yah like a wild Indian warrior.
I felt as he was jumping around in a circle, chanting, if he had just been wearing an Indian headdress, it would have started pouring, because it was a perfect rain dance! Sometimes, their bickering and shrieking at each other gets so loud that a simple motherly “Stop it” can’t be heard.
Easter weekend was the same thing on the three-hour trip home from my Great Aunt Mary and Uncle George’s house. I looked back only to see my daughter pressed up against the car door as tightly as she could to stay out Tucker’s reach, and baby boy’s long, chubby leg hanging out of his car seat, stretching as hard as he can to touch her with the tip of his annoying little brother toes.
After their millionth argument today, I almost started using my hand to chant like my little wild Indians to interrupt their fighting. I am sure that would really capture their attention just fine and by the time they get done laughing at me—they’ve will have forgotten what they were upset about.
So if you hear two screaming children and you see me suddenly start chanting, you’ll know why. Hi-yah-yah-yah-yah-yah!