After dinner one evening, my kids wanted to eat a nectarine. Luckily, my kids, love fruit and constantly want it as a snack or sometimes a full meal. The only problem that night was that there was only one nectarine left.

My 5 year-old daughter grabs the nectarine and washes it. Then she runs upstairs while my 3 year-old son was screaming about it. He started a chase her wanting the nectarine or at least part of it, but she did not want to share. In fact, she was laughing about it as she was running around. I couldn’t let this go on for much longer because it was getting them riled up right before bedtime, and I was worried that it would lead to hitting, which is unfortunately all too familiar for me.

I raised my voice to get the kids to stop running around and demanded that the nectarine be shared. I grabbed it from my daughter and went downstairs to evenly divided up and put it in a bowls. I even brought forks so they wouldn’t get their hands dirty.

While my daughter was talking to my wife, she was adamant that she was not laughing about the whole incident as they were eating the nectarine. My wife was doubling down and saying that my daughter was laughing, which was irritating her. Maybe she was denying it because she thought she would get into more trouble. Who knows.

Eventually, the kids apologized to teach other after the nectarine was gone. Of course they did not use the forks, and the hands were super sticky so they had to end up, washing their hands right before bedtime. When my son went to wash his hands, I grabbed my daughter and whispered in her ear that I knew she was laughing and that it was fine to do that to an extent. She just gave me a little smile and went to wash her hands too. Note to self - have enough nectarines that are divisible by two in the future.