August 15, 2004 - Sunday
A couple times over the last couple of days Harry did the same thing to Ben that Rip has been doing to him. One time it was particularly blatant. As he was coming to the table for lunch and audible said (Ben was still in the living room and not able to hear the comment, so this comment was presumably meant for those parents that would be setting the places) that he wanted to sit next to Ben. However, when Ben did enter the dining room a few moments later Harry said that he did "not want to sit next to Ben every time," using almost exactly the same words as Rip as use to act superior (or whatever) to Harry. It was an overly obvious power play experiment. I asked him whether he thought it was nice when Rip did that to him. He said no.

For the most part, however, Harry and Jeremy had a great time this week playing together and with their cousins, Ben and Sam, although that's not too surprising. They are all still too young harbor grudges, take words out of context, or to bring any serious posturing to this week in Maine. Ultimately, these youthful relationships are still very straightforward means to the selfish end of finding fun interesting ways to play and the worst that happens to usually arguing about who gets to play with the yellow car or sharing the Harry's airplane. I do often wonder, both this week with family all about and just generally as I watch the boys, whether Harry and Jeremy's extremely happy brotherly relationship will continue as they get older, particularly as Jeremy grows more independent. (Interestingly, toward the end of the week Jeremy started to complain about having to sleep in the same room as Harry, although I think that was just homeboy Jeremy starting to miss his own bed at home.) Siblings in general tend to have a way of gibing and testing each other, most innocently as a way of learning social behavior, and it often does seem like only a matter of time before Harry and Jeremy will get into their first agree fight or wrestling match. Hopefully that's a few years away and hopefully they will learn from it, move past it, and not carry any lingering chips on their shoulders.


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