Don't Scratch the Brother Who Steals Your Shoes

When I came home from work tonight, I was shocked by the state of Milo's face. He has deep, angry red scratches on his cheek. It looks terrible, like he was in a biking accident and got road rash on the side of his face.

But no. What happened is that Nora scratched the hell out of Milo's face.

(As an aside, if Milo had sustained injuries like that when, say, a babysitter was watching the kids, I would have been pretty peeved and wouldn't hire the babysitter back again. Not an option when the person watching the kids is your husband, though.)

Anyway, I was shocked that Nora had so viciously attacked Milo. I also had a migraine, so I wasn't able to talk very loudly. I said very quietly in a sad voice, "I'm very sad that you scratched Milo's face." And Nora immediately started crying as if her heart was breaking. She started crying very hard, and while sobbing she tried to tell me "But Milo was taking my shoes and he was taking off my shoe and Milo was taking off my shoe Mommy. Mommy don't be sad because if you are sad then I am sad," (sobbing even harder now), "Mommy you can't be sad because then I am sad. If you're sad Mommy I am sad, and Milo was taking my shoe and he was taking it away from me, you can't be sad Mommy it makes me so sad!" And she's crying and crying even harder and harder, just sobbing like she was heartbroken.

So I'm holding her and and hugging her as she's crying and crying. I asked her if she had apologized to Milo when it happened, and she said she didn't and she didn't want to say she was sorry. As we're talking about that, Milo hears us and then he spontaneously says "I'm sorry about what happened Nora," and then he gave her a hug and a kiss. OMG, so sweet. And Nora says, "But you didn't scratch me!" and then angrily says "I don't want a hug and a kiss! I wiped it off!" Eventually she did apologize to him.

Later this evening we were taking a bath and Milo started crying because the water got into his scratches and hurt him. I asked Nora if she felt sad because Milo was hurting, and she said "No, I'm not sad! I'm happy!" Kind of creepy. Nora totally doesn't have any empathy at all for Milo. I think she actually doesn't give a shit about what anybody thinks except for me.

I don't know what the point of this is. The kids are in a weird place halfway between toddlerhood where they don't understand anything, and halfway between childhood where they're basically real people who understand how to treat others. So they waver back and forth and demonstrate some impressively mature behaviors mere seconds before demonstrating shockingly antisocial or vicious behaviors. It's unsettling.