Don't worry...you'll be safe.

Children are natures way of reminding you that there is a 6am, even on Sunday.

They are also a good way to remember what it was like to be a big brother or sister. Ryan and Ethan are now playing "together" a little more than they used to, throwing airplanes, pushing cars around, and kicking a soccer ball, but normally they just run from the kitchen to the living room and back again, screaming. They do have a little plastic tube that they like to play in, but this is normally reserved for special occasions, like when Ryan wants to torture his little brother. This tube comes in two forms - the rolled up, hula-hoop shaped form which takes up no space and sits in the corner of the room (my favorite form), and the 6 foot long, 2 foot wide form that seems to expand to take up the entirety of whatever room it happens to be located in.

The first time they played in it together, Ryan and Ethan had a lot of fun in the tube and there were only a few incidents requiring dad's attention. Ethan would climb in and Ryan would shake the tube until Ethan either laughed or cried. Either one seemed to be an acceptable outcome. After that though, Ethan became a little more wary of his big brother's motives and at times refused to get into the tube. Ryan had to coax him in using toys, bears, food, and whatever means he could so as to inflict the shaking torture. Eventually nothing worked, and Ryan resorted to flat out lying, using the phrase that big brothers/sisters have used for ages to entice their little siblings into situations which will most likely end in an injury: "Get in the tube, Ethan," he said, followed by a pause. Then, "Don't worry, you'll be safe."

Ethan, of course, bought this and got into the tube. Ryan then laughed in what I would describe as a maniacal way and proceeded to shake him around in the tube until he fell out, laughing/crying.

I think Ethan learned a valuable lesson that day. First, I think that he learned whenever Ryan uses the word "safe", he should immediately begin thinking about the variety of ways in which he may not be safe. His thought process will probably be "Wait...no one was talking safety a few minutes ago. Why is he mentioning my safety now? Typically I am safe even when no one mentions my safety. It is only when my safety is mentioned explicitly that Ryan tends to injure me. Perhaps the word "safe" doesn't mean what I think it means. Wait! What if none of the words I know mean what I think they mean? What if everyone has been lying to me about ALL the words I use? Huh. This is wierd. I think I am experiencing an existential crisis. Of course, I am only 19 months old and until a few seconds ago I had never used the word "existential", or "crisis", or, come to think of it, "and", so possibly dad is just putting words into my mouth for the sake of this story. Whew. Ok...I feel better."

Most likely his thought process would be something like "Ryan = brother. Brother = cool. Ryan = tube? Tube = safe? Ok."

So until he gets a little older and can have a existential crisis, Ethan will continue to get duped into doing stupid stuff because his brother told him to. I dread the first time I hear from an 9 year old Ethan, as he lays on the ground after jumping from our roof, "But Ryan said if I tied these sheets together, they would act like a parachute!"