Diary of a New Daddy: Squabbles Squabbles Squabbles

Now that Caleb and Sarah are growing up and Sarah's more vocal and able to hold her own conversation, having squabbles is becoming a daily affair. I do get frustrated with their daily squabbles and I'm constantly wondering how much, how often and when should I intervene. As of now, Sarah's the one who refuses to listen to Caleb or submit to his authority. She pretends not to hear him and ignores him and this frustrates him even more. And Caleb, not knowing how to handle his sister, ends up shouting or using brute force on her to try to get her to listen to him. Some days, I step in rather quickly to break up the fight. Other days, I pretend that I can't hear them fighting and hope very hard that they will resolve the issue themselves. Whatever it is, teaching both of them issues resolution is really quite difficult. I can only pray that God will give me and ND lots of wisdom, patience and perseverance in this area so that our kids can learn this very important life skill as they grow up.

On a lighter note, sometimes when they squabble, they can be really amusing. I decided to blog about these moments coz I think they are so precious in my kids' growing up years.

"Small" Squabble
I'm sending Caleb home from school and Caleb's sitting in the backseat with Sarah. I hear some commotion behind and then...
Sarah (shouting loudly): korkor! I want you to talk to me!
Caleb (whining): No! I don't want to talk to you! (then he complains to me) Mummy, I want to spend some time by myself and Sarah keeps disturbing me!
Mummy: Sarah, please leave kor kor alone. He wants to spend some time by himself.
Sarah: But Kor kor never spend time with me!! Hmmh! (and she continues to make the sound "Hmmh" and crosses her arms all the way home, while Caleb just ignores her.)

"Bigger" Squabble
A few days ago, I overheard this squabble between Caleb and Sarah. I don't know who irritated who or who hurt who but this was the commotion that I heard.
Caleb: Eh Sarah! Say sorry to me!
Sarah ignores Caleb.
Caleb: Hey! You must say sorry to me!
Sarah continues to ignore Caleb and pretends that he's not talking to her.
Caleb: (Very angry and upset now) Say sorry to me now! Otherwise next time I won't say sorry to you too! Do to others as you would have them do to you!

Me and ND laughed behind their backs when we heard Caleb say the last sentence coz he actually quoted a bible verse and used it to scold Sarah. This is a memory verse that we had memorised together as a family some time back and it's amazing that he's actually trying to apply it!
The verse is from Luke 6:31 ~ "Do to others as you would have them do to you."

"Scary" Squabble
It's bedtime and Sarah doesn't want to go to sleep and decides to irritate her korkor instead. She gets out of her bed, picks up her cup to drink some water and then slowly saunters pass Caleb's bed. And as she's doing this, she keeps coughing at Caleb.
Caleb: Eh! Stop coughing at me! Cover your mouth when you cough!
Sarah: (Slowly crawling on all fours onto her bed. She crawls right next to Caleb's face, coughing away all this while and says in a rather nonchalant tone ...) I'm not coughing... I'm just choking on my water!
Caleb's rather irritated with her and tries to shield his face from her. He clears his throat while doing that and then...the princess reacts and flings her arm at him as though to shoo him away...
Sarah: Korkor! Cover your mouth! Don't cough at me! You got phelgm!
Caleb: I'm just clearing my throat! You mean everytime I clear my throat I must cover my mouth?!
Sarah: Yes! You must cover your mouth! You've got virus!
Then she haughtily turns around and settles down to go to bed (Yup, she's met her objective and she left her korkor speechless and feeling very irritated with her.)
I call this the "scary" squabble coz I was watching the whole scene from the other end of the room and I was horrified at what a chilli padi my daughter is. As for my son, I need to pray real hard that he can learn to manage and control this sister of his.

Even though there's been daily squabbles between Caleb and Sarah, the house is not exactly a warzone.They still love each other a lot and enjoy each other's company tremendously and they do have their very loving moments like these...