Bleach can be good. Ammonia can be good. Mixing the two, however, produces noxious fumes. What do you do, then, if bleach and ammonia live together? You keep them in their respective containers in separate cabinets. You make sure they don’t get jostled and spill. It sounds like an easy fix when we’re just talking about chemicals.

It’s not so easy when the volatile combo is children.

A&J play well together. Ri &Ry play well together. Ri & D play well together, most of the time. D & Ry play well together for short periods, if it’s just the two of them. The problems arise when you combine D with either A or J or any combination of any other two or more. Separating them when they bicker is a short-term solution (albeit, I hear that putting them in cabinets doesn’t go over too well with the legal system). I jest.

The point is that there has to be a better solution, but what?

My brother and I fought like cats & dogs when we were young. Truth be told, I was pretty good at playing the Innocent Sister card, and since he started 95% of our squabbles, in the first place, it was an easy sell. We couldn’t stand each other when he was in elementary and I was in junior high. He changed tactics when he was in junior high and I was in high school: he quit chasing me with intent to cause bodily injury (I was always a few steps faster in those younger days, and it never escalated to fisticuffs); instead, he focused his energies on catching me doing something wrong so that he could tattle on me. Blast that lawn chair at the swim meet that I dropped on my toe and hollered an expletive when he was within earshot! But, I digress. We learned to tolerate each other when I was in college and he was in high school. We finally decided we liked each other long about the time I moved out on my own.

And that was just the two of us! How am I to manage five?