Learning to love each other

I'm fundamentally opposed to most SUVS. They use way more gas than any car should, they are usually a danger to others on the road and they are designed to give their owners a sense that they are more important that anyone else (with the exception of Toyota, savvy enough to make SUVS for people who don't like them, and Subaru, which disguises its SUV and makes it look like a normal four door. ) The only times I have longed for an SUV is when I'm driving through major exurban traffic and my two lovely kids are fighting in the tiny backseat of my sedan. "Does he ever stop talking? He's giving me a headache!" Sian says, covering her ears with all the drama of an eleven year old on the verge of become a teenager. Encouraged by these words (though to a mother's ear there seems little encouraging about them) Colin starts quoting from television shows he's seen, or making weird faces at her, or simply coming up with repetitive and totally meaningless sounds until I, too, feel like I am on the verge of going completely and finally mad. At that point, trapped behind the steering wheel, I beg him, first pathetically and then more and more emphatically, to stop it. Who gives a hoot what "it" is? Were he constructing a new theorem explaining how the universe came into being, he would still have to shut up until he was safely at camp and could broadcast the news to someone else. Except when Sian has her head bent over a computer game, or Colin is reading a magazine, there is pretty much constant bickering occurring in the rear. (Sidebar-this morning, when I heard a particularly romantic song from my youth come on the radio, the two rascals did make a temporary entente-making loud whale noises to drown out Bob Seger). So imagine my surprise when Sian decided that she was going to stage Colin's birthday party. "What is your favorite theme?" she inquired of him tonight. Of course, he was clueless. "Skateboarding?" he asked. After informing him that not all of his possible party guests might have skateboards, she started pressing him again. Sian was born to be an event planner-since she was a tot, she has been organizing parties in the backyard, complete with appropriate (or inappropriate) props. This unaccustomed state of sisterly affection lasted until we got on line at the Parkway to get ice cream cones, at which point they returned to 'normal" behavior-endeavoring to make the other person crazy. But you know what the first question out of their mouths is when they get home...guess. "Where's Colin?" "Where is Sian?" There's definitely more there than meets the eye...fortunately we moms have X-ray vision.