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Mark had been having what Amy would usually call “a hard day.” When Ethan had arrived this morning, excited to play with the inside toys, Mark had wanted to play outside. Then, later, Mark had refused to finish his lunch, but soon after complained that he was hungry while he’d been meant to be taking his nap. And any requests for Mark to help with something set off an episode of whining and fussing.
So, by snack time, Amy decided she’d handle the cleanup herself, and set the boys up with some crayons and paper on the floor in the playroom.
Often, Mark and Ethan would draw together — something cool like a castle where the royals themselves were dragons, across a bunch of pieces of paper that Amy would help them tape together after. Mark had a few ideas, but Ethan was feeling pretty fed up with Mark. He’d been bossy and demanding and hardly fun to play with at all, and since he wouldn’t just listen to Amy, he kept getting fun things — like their time outside, even though Mark had been the one who wanted that — cut short. So Ethan had already decided he wasn’t going to draw with Mark today. He’d promised Amy he was going to draw her a pretty flower, and had set up shop with a fist full of crayons and his back turned to the other boy.
Mark scribbled halfheartedly for a bit, but he could tell Ethan was trying to ignore him, and it made him sad — or mad. Or maybe both. It’s not like Mark had been enjoying his day, either. He peered over, trying to see Ethan’s page.
“What’re you drawing?” Mark asked. Ethan was holding a weird brownish crayon, which wasn’t going to make a pretty flower at all.
“Mind your own beeswax,” Ethan grumbled, hunching over his work.
“But you’re doing it wrong,” Mark huffed. “You said you were makin’ a flower and flower stems are green, and so’s grass.”
“I’m making my own flower.”
“A stupid ugly flower maybe,” Mark muttered under his breath — not quietly enough that Ethan didn’t hear, though, and he cried “Hey!”
From the other room, Amy said sternly: “Mark, are you playing nice?”
“No, he’s not!” Ethan yelled.
“Am too!” Mark yelled. He was really mad, now — Ethan was telling on him, and Amy was taking his side right away? Even though Ethan had been being mean first by not playing with him!? Mark lunged for Ethan’s drawing, intending on scribbling all over it with the crayon clutched in his own hand — the right color, a nice dark green — but Ethan (still yelling, and now trying to kick him away) clutched it, crumpling one corner all up in the process, and when Mark grabbed the other side it got ripped nearly in two — and by then Amy had gotten to them, standing between them, an effective deterrent for further warfare.
“Mark, time out, now!” Amy shouted, pointing to the corner.
“Fine!” Mark shouted back, throwing his crayon on the floor and stomping his way to the chair. Angry tears pricked at his eyes as he heard Ethan crying about how mean Mark was and how he wanted to go home. And Mark knew he’d been being mean, but he was upset too, and hearing Amy coo at and soothe Ethan and not him made him want to never say anything nice to Ethan ever again.
Amy was doing her best to get Ethan into another room so both boys could calm down, but Ethan was crying that he didn’t get to finish the picture for her and wouldn’t follow her. “Let’s go sit at the table and you can make a new one there, okay?” she tried. “But then we’re going to put the art supplies up for today.”
“I didn’t get to finish mine either!” Mark yelled, turning from the corner — breaking yet another rule, as they weren’t allowed to talk while in time-out.
“Mark,” Amy corrected sharply. “Don’t you think you’re in enough trouble, mister? Stay put quietly until I come to get you, and then we’re going to have a talk about your behavior today. Come on, Ethan; let’s go sit at the table and give Mark some time to think about his choices.”
Mark seethed. Ethan was overreacting anyway: It had been a dumb picture and he should’ve let Mark help and he was getting to make a brand new one anyway while Mark was stuck in this dumb corner even though he wanted to scream and cry, too, and he was all alone even though he wanted Amy to comfort him, too.
But then an idea struck him: He was gonna pee his pants right in the time-out chair, and because Amy had yelled at him and told him he had to stay put and stay quiet, it would be all her fault if he had an “accident,” and then she’d feel bad for being so mean to him. And that was all the thought he gave it before he was peeing. For the few seconds it took for his bladder to empty, he felt awfully self-satisfied, like he’d found the perfect payback. “Amy!” he yelled again — because he was sure he could get away with it, now, by saying he’d been going to ask to go potty.
From the other room, she said: “Mark Fischbach, I am not warning you again.”
And that was just fine with Mark. He crossed his arms and sat back, determined to wait until she would see he’d had a really good reason for yelling for her.
Except he could still hear her talking to Ethan. Not all of the words she was saying, but her gentle, kind tone. Something about how the color he’d chosen was great, something about how he was doing a good job.
Mark realized he’d been crying already, and at some point, his angry tears had become sad tears. And it really didn’t take long at all for peed-in pants to get cold and uncomfortable, but now he really didn’t want to call for Amy again — she’d think he was just being bad, because that’s all he’d done all day. He hugged his arms around himself, doing his best to self-soothe.
Amy had only left him as long as she had to — she did know that he was upset and overwhelmed, too, but she’d had to get Ethan settled somewhere in order to turn her attention to Mark. And a minute later, when she came in to check on him, her expression fell from stern to apologetic immediately — just like Mark predicted — but all the delinquency had gone out of him and he confessed immediately. “No, I did it on purpose, I was mad at you, ‘m sorry.”
“Oh, honey… you can get up, come here.” Amy held her arms out for a hug that Mark jumped up out of the chair to accept.
“I need a change,” he whined. He knew he’d burned his big-boy pants privileges for the day, but he really didn’t care — a diaper sounded much better at this point anyway. Safe and comforting.
“You’ll get one,” Amy promised. “Let’s walk and talk. Do you know why you were in time out?” Normally, he’d have to answer this before he was allowed to get up, but under the circumstances, that would’ve been cruel.
“Mean to Ethan,” Mark sniffled miserably.
“And why were you being mean to Ethan, hm?”
“I was mad at him. He didn’t wanna play with me.”
“…Would you want to play with someone who hadn’t been nice to you all day?” She’d gotten him to the bathroom and was working on removing his wet pants.
Mark gave a little sob. “No… but I… it wasn’t on purpose…”
“I know, sweetheart, but we can’t treat our friends like that. What can you do next time you’re feeling mad, and maybe thinking about doing something mean?”
“I don’t know,” he said mournfully. He did know, or kind of anyway, at least now — he could just never seem to remember the other options when he was actually all worked up and frustrated.
Now that he was clean and dry, his tears had stopped. Amy was directing him to lay down for a diaper.
“Hmm, I think you have some ideas. Do you think walking away to take a break would’ve helped you?”
“…Yeah,” Mark said after a moment. That was one of the things he’d talked about with Amy — that he could go to another room, or maybe sit with one of the dogs for a while, until he was feeling calmer. He just had to tell a grown-up what he was doing so they could keep an eye on him.
“I think we should write a list together, and we can put it up in the playroom when you’re feeling small. What do you think?”
“Mmhmm,” Mark agreed. It sounded like a good idea; he’d be able to just look at it rather than trying to remember. But the scent of the baby powder wafting up as Amy finished his tapes made those feelings seem miles away. “I sorry, Amy,” he said tiredly.
“It’s all alright, honey,” she promised with a kiss. “I know you want to be my good boy. Are you all better now? Do you need anything else?”
Mark shook his head. “All better. Thank you. …‘Cept I needta say sorry to Ethan, too, right?”
Amy nodded. “Let’s go, and you can tell him. If you’d like, you can ask if he wants to play something else with you — but Mark, he might want to play on his own for now. Are you okay with that?”
Mark paused, thinking through this with a frown. He’d be really sad if Ethan really didn’t want to play with him any more today. But surely if Mark said he was sorry and tried hard to make it up to him… “Yeah, that’s okay,” Mark said.
He followed Amy back out to the table where Ethan had been drawing. He scowled a little at Mark.
“Mark has something he wants to tell you, Ethan,” Amy said, ruffling Mark’s hair.
“I sorry for being mean,” he said. “An’ ripped your picture.”
Ethan’s scowl had soften a little — mostly because he’d noticed Mark had regressed further, making Ethan the older of the two. But that didn’t mean Ethan was entirely over it. Just because Mark was littler now didn’t mean he hadn’t hurt Ethan’s feelings. “Okay,” was all he said, still a little warily.
“Good, Mark. Now, can you help Ethan pick up the art supplies?”
For the first time all day, Mark nodded rather than arguing. He walked over to the table, collecting the crayons a few at a time to drop them back in the box. Ethan quickly pulled his drawings into one haphazard pile — away from Mark — and the blank sheets of paper into another. Before he got too far, though, Amy asked, “Ethan, would you like to choose a drawing to put up on the fridge?”
Ethan lit up with excitement, but before he had a chance to answer, Mark pouted: “Amy, I wanna drawing on the fridge too…”
“You didn’t do a drawing, you just ruined mine,” Ethan grumbled. Amy hushed him gently, hoping to keep the peace they’d so recently attained.
She thought about it a moment, but in that same vein, she didn’t want to tell Mark he couldn’t put something up. She didn’t think he’d really want to, anyway, when he remembered he only had the one. “If you want, Mark, we can hang up the drawing you started. Ethan, do you know where it went?”
Ethan did know, actually, but he had forgotten until now, and shifted uncomfortably. “No…”
Mark had ducked his head — that was only going to remind him how he’d been bad today. “I don’t wanna hang that one up.”
Amy, though, had picked up on the fact that Ethan was obviously lying. “Is there something you want to tell me, Ethan?”
He shook his head resolutely, avoiding her eyes. “No.”
“Okay… then let’s look for it.”
“I don’t wanna put it up anyway,” Mark repeated petulantly, but Amy had already bent down to look under the table — finding what had started out as Mark’s drawing, now ripped up into a handful of pieces.
“Ethan,” she prompted, “did you rip up Mark’s drawing?”
“He started it,” Ethan whined, kicking at the chair legs.
This, though, made Mark feel better. “Okay, we’re even,” he said. “Right, Ethan?”
Surprised but relieved that Mark had his back on this, Ethan actually smiled back at him. “Yeah, see Amy? We’re even.”
Amy considered for a moment whether she should let this fly — but under the circumstances, if it put her boys back on the same page, she may as well give it her blessing. “…Alright, then…. Go ahead and take the art supplies back, and you can each pick out a toy.”
Ethan, both in the spirit of having called it even and in the pleasure of flexing the magnanimity that he could show as the newly-older one, decided he did want to play with Mark, so fifteen minutes later, the two of them had erected a car track and were zooming Hot Wheels around like nothing had happened, with Amy supervising from the couch.
Fifty minutes later, though, Mark — tired out from no nap and a big meltdown — had fallen asleep with one hand still holding a car and the other thumb in his mouth.