Four Squared

Today was a hard day. Maxwell and Zara are in an intense bicker mode that I'm not really sure how to break them out of. Maxwell enjoys trolling people and has the same gift that I do in divining what irritates other people. Zara is a self centered whiner who uses her brilliance to manipulate other people to get what she wants. And she has a tenacity which befits her parentage on both sides: Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra.

It was interesting today watching the transition in Mawell from when the two of us were in the car to when the girls joined us. He was two entirely different people. Maxwell and I share logic, humor and a desire to have the most fun possible. He would never even try an appeal to emotion with me because he knows it would fall on deaf ears. But with his mother and sister present, he knows the points to prick them. To his mother he is an adept lawyer, arguing his case for a particular restaurant, activity or other course of action. He has no compunction about bending the truth to fit an emotional narrative that will play well to that audience. In his mother's eyes he can do little wrong and she is a tiger defending him.