Brothers are the Greatest!

Let me start you out with some background information. My little brother, Jonathan, is back in school and is taking really early morning classes so he’ll have the afternoon and evening off to work so he can pay for school and save for his mission. My mom is way awesome and does everything she can to support him and encourage him in his efforts. In fact, tonight she decided to bake banana nut bread for the morning knowing that Jonathan would have to leave around 5:30 in the morning and does not take time to make breakfast for himself.

After baking the bread, my mom went back to work at Kohl’s (around 7:30pm) to finish up some pending projects; she works down the road and has earned the right to work whatever hours she decides are necessary. Now, the brothers are left home alone to be entertained by Monty Python.

Jonathan, the young man that he is, suddenly decides that dinner just wasn’t enough and begins scavenging the kitchen for something easy when he finds the still warm banana nut bread on the countertop. He then proceeds to cut a huge portion of the bread that only moments earlier mom so proudly baked as part of breakfast in the morning.

By the time mom gets home (around 9:30), Jonathan and I were minding our own when mom, in her bewildered voice asks, “Who… who ate the banana nut bread?” The simultaneous reply “Jeff did” Jonathan did.” Knowing that Jonathan was lying and mom was not looking, I, as his older brother, had the solemn responsibility to slug him to remind him he was fibbing. In Jonathan’s lesser wisdom he contested by slugging me in return while mom was watching. “MOM! JONATHAN HIT ME!” “YOU HIT ME FIRST!” “YEAH, WELL YOU LIED TO MOM!.” By this point we could no longer hold back the laughter and had to resort to taking turns slugging each other.

Our poor mom just had to leave the room.

So to those who might be raising boys, just know we fight, hit, bite, scream and are violent with each other because we love each other.