Sibling rivalry.  It’s an oft written about topic and I’m sure there’s a lot of good advice out there in a lot of good parenting books.   But really, who has time to read all those books anyway?!  When it comes to dealing with sibling rivalry, and most other child-rearing issues, we tend to just wing it.  Trial by error is the way we roll and, while we’ve made our fair share of errors, well, we’re still rolling!

In our house, some of the feistiest fights occur between Liam (5) and Ciara (3).  “He took my baby!  She broke my Lego castle! He hit me! She BIT me!” are just a few of the frequent piercing shrieks that permeate our walls… fortunately, our house has very solid walls so the neighbors don’t hear much of these angst-filled accusations… unless, of course, the windows are open in which case I’m sure they just mutter to themselves “sounds like they’re at it again in the Lyons Den!” 
 In any case, Liam and Ciara are at each other’s throats about fifty percent of the time; the other fifty percent, they are the best of friends.  I’ll peer into the room they share and marvel at the two of them “reading” together or playing house or coloring.  Typically, just as I start to marvel at myself for raising such a lovely pair of tots, there they go again!  “He won’t let me have the PINK marker!  Mom, you said she can’t HAVE markers so I gave her a crayon! I WANT THE PINK MARKER!!!  But it’s MINE!”  You get it, in fact, should you be blessed with more than one offspring, you surely experience similar scenes in your own home.

Another scene that is becoming more common in our house is the “Triplet Takedown”.  As our triplets near 18 months, they are asserting themselves more than ever.  If one guy has a ball, the other two will tackle him for it.  If one has a snack cup of highly-coveted Cheerios or Goldfish, the other two will plan a sneak attack and share the loot.  If one crawls into my lap for a story, all hell breaks loose as the other two try to dislodge him and I disappear in a wild array of flying arms, legs, baby books and more often than not, snot!

 
We used to intervene a lot more – and, I still will if someone is about to get hurt – like last week, when two of the babies were beating on the third one’s head with wooden spoons.  So much for my cute idea of cultivating little American Idols using spoons as microphones!  The point is, over a few years and a LOT of fussing and fighting, we’ve learned that it’s often best not to get involved.  They’ll work it out. They always do.  That survival of the fittest instinct kicks in and takes sibling rivalry by storm.  Kids learn to hang on, hold out or give up.  They learn that they win some and they lose some.  And, instead of inserting ourselves in the middle of the problem, Des and I have learned to occasionally just crack open a cold one and watch the next round… assuming, of course, that there’s no bloodshed!