I have two daughters, now 18 and 23. My best friend (my sister by heart)has two boys, now 10 and 15. We share our children, neither one of us needed to go any further. Her boys are my boys, and my girls are her girls. The kids treat each other like brothers and sisters and call each other godbrother or godsister. With that said, her boys, we’ll call them J and R for now, love to come to our house. They get to hang with Uncle Richie, who lets them get away with everything, buys the most obnoxious toys and hang in the “Man Cave”. For some reason they really like it here. I already went through the teen years with my girls and there was plenty of fighting. I was always yelling at someone to stop talking to the other one. They fought about clothes, shoes, makeup, brushes, who was getting a ride to where, and who was sitting where at the table, and who called “shot gun” first. Pretty much if it was seen, done, or heard they would argue about it. But, Do not cross one of them because they would turn into a pack of wolves defending each other. So being experienced with sibling rivalry, I should have no problem handling the boys, right? I’ll let you be the judge.

Last weekend the boys came over. J kept punching R in the arm to make him tough. Not cool so uncle Richie put a stop to that. Great, one thing down. That was handled well…woo hoo we still got it! Later that night, I’m in the dining room on Twitter typing away at 1:30 in the morning. R is sleeping sound on one couch and J is texting away and watching TV on the other couch. J comes over and asks me for a highlighter, I tell him where to get it (by not lifting my head and just pointing). Thinking to myself,  wow he’s such a bright boy, reading something for school and highlighting the important facts!! I faintly heard him say,”oh good a sharpie, even better”! Still sucked into twitter, it didn’t sink.

The next thing I know R has sharpie all over his little cute sleeping face….EVERYWHERE!!! OMG how am I going to explain THIS to their mother? I can’t wake R now, so I let him sleep all night with the permanent marker on his face. I yell at J asking, “Why would you do that to your brother”. I wasn’t aware of the prior events that happened at their house. J said R wrote on him with a highlighter and he just got him back. The next morning, Mr. Rucci woke up, his usual, bright and early and went to wake up the boys and saw R. He asked, “What is all over your face,” then immediately looking at J, asking,”WHAT did you do to your brother”? How he knew right away was beyond me….does Mr. Rucci have some parenting skills that I lost or missed? Mr. Rucci helped R with cleaning his face and the joke for the day was, TT (that’s me) doesn’t pay attention to her surroundings when on Twitter!

Glad that incident is over…phew NOT!- the next day I received this letter from my best friend and I had to share.

Dear Rich & Rachel,

Thank you again ever so much for the giagantical weapon you purchased for R. We especially love the large wooden target that is now set up in the living room. We spent all of last night target shooting or practicing to be a sniper. Last week R wanted to be a Nascar Pit Crew Chief when he grew up now we want to “snipe” people. It was adorable I snapped a few photos to update his baby book. R showed me a series of bruises on his arm in the shape of J’s fist. (This happened under my watch not yours) Apparently beating the crap out of R to the point of bruising him will make him tougher. Both boys agreed this was the objective to make R tough. Please save this email in the event I am brought up on charges for child abuse next time the boy see’s a DR. When I went in to wake up R this morning I noticed he is sleeping with a Sharpie marker next to his bed (no joke) I guess he wants to be prepared for a counter attack should he ever be able to stay up later than J. Last night he must have fallen asleep first because the marker remained capped on the window ledge. I removed the marker from his room. J was spared this time. Why J should not have been spared marker on his face………..I discovered last night the J spent quite a bit of money on gifts. I know this because he had to ask me to bring him to the bank to get the money to pay back his friend. I usually try to be more supportive and diplomatic when dealing with these types of issues but I did find myself screaming “Are you an Idiot???”Ah yes Boys…..gotta love them.

T

note: some things had to be deleted from the last paragraph of T’s letter in fear the teenager would get wind of me writing about him. This could be something he would remember when I’m in a home and I try not to give reason for any of the children to switch my toothpaste for Preparation H. So you see, even though I have girls, I still get to enjoy the never ending excitement of “boy stuff” If you can relate or if you have advice, please leave comments below 🙂

 

This is a re-post from my old blog. It’s such a funny #fail story that I had to share again!