Often mornings and breakfast time is loud and the kids need to be directed so that we’re not late for school, but this morning Everett was in a more sombre mood. When I got downstairs to the kitchen, and Shannon had left already, Everett was sitting at the desk looking at the instructions to his Pokemon Lego, and listening quietly to music from the Frozen soundtrack coming out of the Alexa speaker. Everett wasn’t sitting at the island nor was the music playing of the louder kitchen Sonos speakers.
Yesterday Eli was over and playing at our house, and stayed over for dinner. Everett, knowing the rules, told Eli about eating all of his dinner so that he could get strong, and eating his veggies so that he would have soft poo. He even tried to get Eli to eat so that he could have dessert, or a chocolate bar. But to no avail, I suspect because Eli doesn’t get as much structure at his house relatively.
In the car today after dropping Sierra off, Everett was thinking about playing with Eli and trying to figure something out. He told me, “Eli is stronger than me.” The two of them were pushing each other playing Pokemon battles. Eli is smaller and probably more scrappy and Everett, being taller and probable a pound or two heavier, is just more reserved and careful, and I suspect he doesn’t let all of his strength out.
“How is Eli stronger when he doesn’t eat all of his dinner?” he wonders. Everett may have been trying to figure out how Eli is stronger even if he is younger. “Eli is stronger than Harrison too,” Everett told me. Harrison is like a year older than Eli, but apparently that is what Eli claims. Then he told me, “Eli takes jujitsu.” I asked him if he wanted to take jujitsu, but he didn’t reply.
I tried explaining that strength isn’t the most important thing, but I don’t think Everett was convinced. Maybe he’s starting to wonder if what we tell him is the whole truth, such as eating all of dinner will make him strong. Being smart and perseverance is important as well.
