Kids behaving badly

Max and Sabrina, before sibling rivalry struck.

I'm still feeling all warm and fuzzy from putting up yesterday's post, and getting such nice feedback. Thank you. Especially because this week the kids have not exactly been making me feel all warm and fuzzy.

Sabrina is turning 4 this month, we figured we'd lucked out and skipped the terrible twos and terrible threes. But is it possible to have the terrible fours?! Because she has become master of the meltdowns. Tonight, after she kicked Max as we were in bed reading books and I reprimanded her, she sprawled out on the floor and writhed and shouted like she was straight out of The Exorcist. She eventually calmed down and came back into bed. At which point Max decided it would be fun to kick her.

Sometimes they feed off of each other's badness. Even though in my heart I am a little glad that Max is smart enough to know just how to press his sister's buttons. As a toddler, Sabrina was obsessed with her pacifier. "My habifier," she called it. Max, who has so much trouble using his hands, developed a knack for swatting the thing right out of her mouth when she got on his nerves. Sabrina would wail, but Dave and I got a kick out of seeing him do it.

Once, when Max was about 2, we went out to dinner. In the middle of our meal, Max was getting antsy and he grabbed a chunk of bread, threw it, and it landed on another family's table. "WOOO HOOO!!! GREAT THROW, MAX!" I screeched without thinking, so excited that he had managed to grasp a chunk of bread. Back then, he really wasn't grasping much of anything. Then I realized that the family of four at the other table was glaring at me.

What "bad" behavior doesn't really get you mad? What behavior does? Discuss!

Max eats, insane sibling rivalry ensues

Big excitement at our house. Max ate by himself for 15 minutes straight, the most ever! This is him downing couscous, which we have in abundance because Linnette (our babysitter) is addicted to it. Every year since Max was born, he always has some sort of breakthrough right around his birthday, which is coming up on December 10. At age one, he commando crawled (like Army soldiers do, because he didn't have the arm strength to get up on all fours). At two, he did get up on all fours and boy, did he get around. At three, he walked across his bedroom and into my arms. Four and five are a bit of a blur, because he made a lot of progress. And now, at six, he's feeding himself.

You may have noticed Sabrina's reaction to her brother's breakthrough (she's decked out in her ballet-recital costume from June). When I squealed "Yaaaaaaay! Max is eating!" she wailed "Hug me!!!" Not caught on tape: the part where she said "MAX IS GOING TO EAT IT ALLLLLLLL UP!!! MOOOOMMMMMY, WE WON'T HAVE ANY FOR TOMORROW!!!!" FYI, she doesn't even like couscous. Fascinating, isn't it, how kids wear their emotions on their pink-sequined sleeves.

She gets jealous of all the attention we give to Max. We celebrate, with loud whoops and cheers, every little accomplishment. I totally understand where Sabrina is coming from; I was pretty jealous of my sister when we were kids. Mainly, because she was always such a good girl and, I thought, my mother's favorite. I wasn't a juvenile delinquent or anything, but me and my big mouth gave my parents a run for their money.

Just curious, what kind of sibling were you growing up—the good one? The funny one? The smart one? The troublemaker?