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.
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