One Night at Grandma’s (Part 1)

Dear Xander,

Your relationship with your cousin Andre is at best a tumultuous one. There are days when the both of you will laugh and play like best friends, and then things can suddenly turn ugly, when Andre refuses to play with you or share his toys, or you decide to do the same.

Andre is about a year older than you, and communicates in spoken English at a level we feel is well beyond his age. He lives mainly with Grandma, which is also where you and Andre get to interact on a weekly basis. One thing that Andre hasn’t quite got the hang of is playing well with others over an extended period of time, being an only child, much like you. More importantly, he sees you as a competitor for the otherwise unadulterated affection and attention he usually enjoys from his mother (your mother’s sister) and Grandma; a sibling rivalry between two children who aren’t siblings in the traditional sense.

Which is why you surprised everyone in Grandma’s house last Friday night.

The night had expectedly come to the point where Andre was beginning to irritate you by not playing with you, and snatching toys away from you. You got fed up, and tried pretending to sleep on the sofa with a grumpy pout for a while (your mother and I have never seen you do that before), before walking over to seek consolation from your mother.

Andre was with his own mother in the middle of the living room reinforcing the fact that he “doesn’t want to play with Xander”, and “doesn’t want to share”, when you turned to him and suddenly said, “I want Andre to come play at my house.”

Your mother and her sister started looking at you in bewilderment. Your mother then tried to confirm, “You want Andre to come play at our house? With your toys?”

You said, “Yes. I want to share my toys with Andre.”

Andre was stunned; he sat in the middle of the living room, mouth open, not knowing how to react. On your behalf, I further extended the invitation, reasoning with Andre that it would only be fair that he come to Xander’s house to play with your toys as often as you come to play with his. Through the turn of events, we could see he wasn’t able to reconcile your offer with his intentional bad behaviour towards you, though; he declined the offer, then hid in a corner, apparently in shame.

Andre’s mother puts the incident down to a heartwarming generosity unexpected of a 3-year-old. I likened it more to an equally unexpected play of reverse psychology. Either way, you stunned everyone in the living room, and your parents were immensely proud of your big-heartedness/the most impressive psychological counter-manoeuver I have ever witnessed by a 3-year-old.

This would usually be the point where I would sum up the lesson to be learnt, a moral of the story, so to speak.

Except that this story hasn’t ended, and the lesson had yet to begin.

To be continued.