Words from a Wise Man

The actions. The chatters. The laughters. The cries. The whines. The arguments. The reporting of each other's mischiefs. The complaints. It doesn't matter what time of the day or night. As long as they are around, there will be non-stop actions and noise. Even at meal times, they will not just eat. They have to talk, play, fight more than they eat. It is not that they don't know the rules, I think they are still in the infancy stage of learning what self-control really means. It drives us mad, but fortunately, they still will finish their food.

They are my four sons. Who else?

Two days ago at dinner, while Enzian and Johann were too engaged playing with each other at the table, Ludwig secretly placed 4 to 5 pieces of his chicken breast meat which he shredded on Enzian's plate. Bart and Ludwig were trying very hard to hide their smiles and pretended to continue to eat. Enzian had already finished his dinner, his plate was empty except for a few pieces of chicken bones. When Enzian turned back to his plate, he absentmindedly took a piece of the shredded chicken from his plate and ate. You can imagine how high Bart and Ludwig felt when Enzian didn't even realise he was chewing on Ludwig's meat... until halfway through the chewing, he suddenly remembered he had already cleared all the meat from his plate, "this is not my chicken!" and started to whine with a mouth full of chicken. Of course, at this instant, both Bart and Ludwig decided to give up pretending and burst out laughing. The most hilarious thing was, as Enzian whined more, he still carried on chewing.

So I had to come into the picture to settle their monkey business.

This is what happens on a daily basis in my family. Not a big deal. It is trivial. Not worth mentioning. In fact, it sounds funny. Yes, it does, but it sounds funny after the event. Not during. It doesn't happen just once a day. During school days, several times a day. During weekends, public holidays and school vacations, multiply several times a day by several more times by 4. And many times, one can happen simultaneously with another. So even if it is really so funny, once you get an overdose, it will not be funny anymore.

I told my father-in-law who was here today to help Christophe pull some cables (so that the house is wired and passes Christophe's high-technology standards) that I could only have peace when the boys are in school or when they are sleeping. He smiled, although he could see my impatience and frustrations.

After a short pause, he replied gently, "it's better to see children in action than none at all, because that means something is wrong with them."