In which Darby discovers trash talk

The boys and I saw the Conners in Rochester last week (more on that later), and let me just say how startling it is to see Paige, who is (1) younger than Darby and (2) a girl, ahead of him in height and weight. And that's despite the fact that, of my two sons, Darby is the one who won't stop eating. Sorry, Darby: your genes have failed you.

But he's not letting it get to him. Darby and Paige got along very well, which was a delight to see.

For example, Darby loves to play catch, so we spent several sessions in the Conners family kitchen bouncing a rubber ball back and forth. Paige wanted to play, too, but she doesn't have as much practice as Darby, so she struggled with the catching part. The ball would squirt away across the room, and the two of them would race to chase it down, but Darby -- well, I'm not kidding, Darby has a LOT of practice at this, so he usually came up with the ball, only to have Paige feeling left out and trying to take it out of his hands. But I didn't even have a chance to work out a balanced system before Darby solved the problem for me. "Here, I'll share," he announced, and handed Paige the ball. Go Darby!

And that became the pattern: I bounce the ball to Darby; Darby catches it and hands it to Paige; Paige throws the heavy, water-filled glitter ball at my head or my groin from 36 inches away; repeat. Excitement for everyone!

We continued in that fashion for quite a while, and I was so proud and relieved to see Darby and Paige cheerfully and spontaneously sharing duties. I had two toddlers and one ball, and we were all getting along and playing nicely. I don't know how else to put it: this moment was magical.

But then I bounced it to Darby, and the ball slipped away, and the two kids dove for it in a mad scrum. Again, Darby got to it first. He rose to his feet with the ball in his grasp.

"I got it!" he cheered.

"Good job!" I exclaimed, because that's what you do.

And Paige loves attention and praise too, I'm sure, because she immediately stood and lifted her empty arms in the air: "I got it!" And she's 2, so she says this with no irony, which is already pretty funny.

And Darby just turned and gave her this shockingly mature affronted look, like he couldn't believe the gall of this girl.

"No, I got it," he corrects her. "You got nothing!"