The Unreasonableness is Breathtaking

Cubby is an extremely intelligent child, and quite logical in most respects. But occasionally, he reminds me graphically that he is, after all, only six years old.

Take last night, for instance.

Jack had had a particularly enthusiastic encounter with macaroni and cheese, so I announced I would be bathing him to get the remnants out of his hair, and ears, and everywhere else. Charlie piped up that he hadn't had a bath in the longest time (Saturday night, but who's keeping track?), so he would have the next bath.

Cubby announced that he didn't want to take a bath. Okay, whatever. It's winter. They're covered head to toe all the time and they don't sweat, so they don't bathe much in the winter.

Jack had his bath. Charlie had his bath. Cubby had no bath.

Later, when I finished supervising Cubby's and Charlie's tooth brushing, I said cheerily, "Okay, Charlie! You're already in your pajamas because you had a bath. Only Cubby needs to get his jammies on."

Do you know what my extremely intelligent, eminently logical six-year-old said to that? "Charlie took a bath JUST SO he would have his pajamas on before ME!"

Uh. What?

I was so dumbfounded by the irrationality of this response that I couldn't think what to say except, "It had nothing to do with you. Charlie just wanted to have a bath. You didn't. He wasn't thinking of pajamas."

I kept repeating this as Cubby became more and more insistent, whiny, and finally hysterical the entire time he was putting on his own pajamas and shrieking that, "Charlie did it on PURPOSE! To get his pajamas on FIRST! Because he wanted to BEAT ME!"

Eventually I got them into bed and shut the door on this ridiculousness, otherwise I'm sure it would have gone on much longer.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the power of competition among brothers. It trumps even a logical mind sometimes.