Anybody else's kids do this?

I don't know why, but somehow over the years our children have developed a tradition that says that every Sunday morning they need to build a fort. Or two. Maybe it's because they can't play outside, and they can't get as wild inside (well, at least, they're not supposed to get as wild... but they do it anyway).

So every Sunday morning I lose my place to sit (because every chair and every couch cushion in the house is called into service for the fort). Also, every Sunday morning ends in a big fight, caused by a power struggle over which child is going to be in charge of the fort. Usually the fort ends up in a shambles because the child who isn't in charge of the fort (due to being a smaller size) decides to get even by wrecking the fort.

So this morning when Dallin and Sariah both begged to make a fort, I was hesitant. But they begged and begged, and they decided that to solve the fighting issue they would make two forts, then they would each have one, and nobody would have to bother the other person's fort. To a 7-year-old and a 3-year-old, this looked like a fantastic solution. But I knew better.

They didn't even make it through the building phase with arguing because naturally, Dallin created a much bigger and coolerl fort for himself than he did for Sariah, and naturally, she noticed that hers was smaller and didn't exactly like that. But we averted the crisis by insisting that Dallin increase the size of Sariah's fort to more closely match his own.

Things went well for awhile, but the fact of the matter is that a big brother's fort is always going to be more appealing than one's own fort if one happens to be a little sister. It doesn't matter how cool one's own fort is, brother's must be cooler simply because it's not yours. It's also a fact that big brothers don't want little sisters in their forts, especially after they've gone to the effort of making the little sister one of her own. So once again, we fielded screaming meltdowns. And once again, the roof of big brother's fort came crashing down more than once, and not because it wasn't well-built in the first place.

Ah, Sundays.