C., now 8 years old, was an only child for 7.5 of those years. As a baby and toddler, he enjoyed uninfringed-upon access to his toys. No one stole them, no one kicked them out of his reach just to see what he’d do, no one said, “Here, let me do that,” no one broke his favorite car. He lived blissfully unaware that lurking outside our four walls was a world full of injustice.

I’ll never forget the first time another child in the church nursery came up to C. and yanked a toy right out of his hands. He was about 1.5, happily playing with a toy, when all of a sudden – whoosh! – it was gone. And the culprit stood there smiling. The nerve of that kid! C. looked around in horror, hoping that someone nearby had seen what happened. His eyes said: “Did you see that? Can you believe it? Why, oh why, would anyone do that? There are lots of toys here; why did he have to take the only one I was holding?”

He didn’t cry, didn’t grab the toy back, didn’t fall to the floor in a fit of rage. He just stood there, stunned, his faith in the goodness of all mankind forever shattered.

Now L., on the other hand, at the tender age of 14 months, knows all about the injustice of the world. C. has seen to that. C. likes to “help” his little brother figure out toys, or to steal gently remove and destroy hide the way-too-noisy ones. He’s been known to grab something out of L.’s hands without thinking twice — clearly, he’s gotten used the world’s cruelty and figures L.’ll have to deal with it sooner or later.

L. does not stand in stunned disbelief. He grabs the toy, attempting to climb over whatever or whoever happens to be in his way. He whines or yells or generally expresses displeasure at the turn of events. In his own not-so-quiet way, he seems to say: “Look buddy, I was playing with that, and if you’re going to grab it, I’m either going to grab it back or scream until Mom makes you give it back to me.”

I have a feeling this is the case with most kids. First-borns might live in a bubble for a little while, but other siblings are immersed into the hard knocks of life right from the start.

Like C., I’m a first-born. I don’t remember my first run-in with injustice, but I know that, even now, I like things to be “fair.” I am irritated when people think they can live by different rules than the rest of us. I want to jump in to defend those treated unfairly. And while I usually avoid conflict, I will speak up when I think that a situation has become ridiculously unbalanced. Like C. reacted when that brat child stole his toy, I look around as if to say, “Hello? Did anyone see that? Can you believe it?”

Stay tuned. More thoughts on injustice tomorrow…

There have been quite a few discussions about school in our house lately. While C. still holds to his desire to not know when the first day of school is, he’s grasped the general idea that this week is his last full week of freedom. As that first day of third grade looms large on the horizon, we’ve chatted about teachers, friends, the cafeteria, and recess. And naturally, we’ve talked about this summer.

C. surprised me the other day with this comment:

“This has been my least favorite summer vacation so far.”

Now wait just a minute. C.’s had a very busy and exciting summer. Golf camp, Architecture camp, Arts camp, two rounds of VBS, a family getaway. To me, those sound like the ingredients for a fun summer. Not a “least favorite” summer.

So I asked him about it: “Didn’t you have fun doing all those camps and VBS, and going on vacation?”

“Yes,” he answered. “And that’s exactly the problem.”

In general, I think of myself as a mom who [mostly] understands her kids. But he had me stumped.

“What do you mean, C.? If those things were all fun, then didn’t that make this summer a good one?”

“Yes.”

By this point I was really confused.

“Then why was it your least favorite?”

“Because,” he said, in a voice that implied I was nothing less than a completely clueless mom. “You know how it goes. ‘Time flies when you’re having fun.’ So since I had a lot of fun this summer, time went way too fast and now school’s about to start. So that means I didn’t like this summer.”

“So let me get this straight. You didn’t like this summer because it was too fun?”

“Yes.” [Translation: Duh, Mom. You finally get it.]

I offered to make next summer drag by interminably by creating three horridly boring and work-filled months, but he told me that would be even worse. What he wants is for time to go slowly when he’s having fun.

Unfortunately, I can’t change the metaphysical reality that time does indeed fly when we have fun. So instead, I guess I’ll try to make next summer just as miserable as this one has been.

Because I like to be bossy helpful, I often slip a book about building a strong marriage into a bridal shower gift. Oh, don’t worry, I still pick up something from the registry, but I also figure that some unsolicited advice in the form of a book can’t hurt. (On that subject, two books that have helped me are The Five Love Languages and The Marriage Builder.)

However, I was thinking the other day that if a new couple came right out and asked me for one piece of advice for those early days of marriage, I’d be tempted to blurt out:

Whatever you do, don’t go on a date every Friday night!

I know, I know. It would seem that this advice runs counter to all the marriage gurus, who insist that every couple establish a weekly date night. But let me give you some background.

Chad and I were married while we were both still in college. As you can imagine, we had to live on love and peanut butter (and Ramen noodles), since money was fairly scarce. But we determined to go on a date every Friday night. After all, the dollar theater or the local coffee shop allowed us to romantically bond for only a few bucks. And it was the right thing to do, right?

And besides, we hardly ever saw each other.

I was taking a full load of classes and working on campus to pay the tuition. Chad was working two jobs to pay the bills, and didn’t have time for classes those first few months. He worked at Toys R Us, where he had the unbeatable pleasure of responding to irate customers and assembling bicycles for children. And he worked at UPS, where he was overjoyed to go into work at the lovely hour of 4:00 a.m. Except during Christmas season (which started somewhere in October), when his starting time moved closer to midnight.

Yes, those were days of a new husband and wife passing like ships in the night. Except since Chad had to leave for work at such a crazy hour, we usually passed like ships in the early evening.

But still, we were convinced that when the weekend finally arrived, we would celebrate by going on a date each and every Friday.

The dates would go something like this:

• Try to decide what to do. “What do you want to do?” “I don’t care. What do you want to do?”
• Pull into the parking lot of the nearest date-type location.
• Proceed with date.
• One of us says something to the other one.
• The other one gets offended.
• The first one gets offended because the second one got offended.
• A fight ensues.
• Drive home in silence.
• Go to bed, each one practically falling off his or her side of the bed in an attempt to not go near each other.

Ah yes, those were the days.

Being young and naive, it took us a while to figure out why we fought during every. single. date. Why would each and every Friday result in both of us being hurt and not talking to each other? Why were we both so very over-sensitive on dates? Was our marriage destined for failure?

I’m sure some of it was related to the fact that we were still learning how to communicate (Which we’ve now completely mastered, of course. I’m kidding.). But the biggest contributor to our marital strife?

Exhaustion.

We’d both just put in very long weeks. Work, school, trying to figure out the whole marriage thing, keeping up with friends, paying bills, cooking, cleaning, etc., etc. Chad had gone to work at 4:00 or earlier that day, I had gone to class and worked until 5:00 or so. We were both drained and certainly in no shape to handle whatever date-type expectations we were putting on ourselves. What we should have been doing every Friday night is this:

• Go home.
• Eat peanut butter sandwiches.
• Crawl in bed with good books.
• Go to sleep early.

Eventually, we figured it out. We reserved Fridays for quiet evenings with early bedtimes, and saved dates for Saturday. We were amazed at how this tiny change made our marriage so much better. Dates were fun again, fights were few, and we were much better-rested.

Maybe my advice to a new couple shouldn’t be about not going on Friday night dates. Maybe instead it should be something along the lines of: Don’t underestimate the power of a simple, wise decision. Sometimes the little things make the biggest difference.