Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I went for a stroll with my daughter and her eleven month old. He puts EVERYTHING in his mouth. He also has quite a set of choppers, and we call him the crocodile. He bites his older brother, but it seems to be about teething, not intent to harm. Just as his brother taps him on the head, despite warnings from his parents, about not touching his head. These interactions remind me of my brother and I. We were 2 3/4 years apart, and I know I must have accidently on purpose assaulted him. There is an ancient photo of me in a white pinafore dress standing next to my brother in his high chair, and the look in my eyes says I'm just itching to push the chair over. We fought then got along, then fought again. We drew an imaginary line in the backseat of the car and screamed if either of our hands was a pinkie across it. But we learned to compromise. I played army men and he played dolls. He was desperate to tag along with my friends and I, until he was well into elementary school. I walled myself up with girlfriends and sleepovers and reading constantly. But we both knew we were in "this" together. We united to criticize our parents. On vacations, where we both loved the swimming pools in motels where we stopped we were compatible dolphins. I adored him and he me, but we would have never admitted such a thing. We led very different lives because of our gender and our parents' pressures, but we agreed on harsh critical assessment of our parents. We moved enough that it felt like just the two of us against the world sometimes. I miss him.