Competition.  Sibling rivalry.  It's the really fun part (as in drives you CRAZY) of having more than one kid. 

There is just something deep down in people's  psyche that brings this out when they get a new brother or sister.  And it starts from BIRTH.  The moment that other child is born, the older child starts competing with this little ball of poop and boogies.  It starts innocently enough with the older children competing for attention.  This is completely understandable because mom and dad's attention is generally diverted to A) Cleaning up said poppies, and B) Wiping said boogies. 

Eventually the little baby grows up and can move around by themselves and the REAL sibling rivalry begins.  At first, it's cute.  They might race each other around the house (the smaller one always looses), or compete to be the first one to the sandbox (again, the smaller one looses).  But, eventually, the competition becomes their ENTIRE lives.  EVERYTHING becomes a competition.  Who can be the first one up in the morning to brush their teeth,  who's the first one downstairs to eat breakfast (last one down is a rotten egg), who can get in the car faster to go to school (they're pretty evenly matched on this one), to who can say goodbye to most neighborhood dogs (EVERY dog!), and finally, who can drive Super Mega Dad INSANE the fastest.

At some point, you start to invent games to play into their sibling rivalry to entertain yourself to stave off the insanity for just one more day.  My current favorite is the "Quiet Game".  This entails competing to see who can stay quiet the longest.  My hope was that I would be able to get around 5 good minutes of quiet in between "Me first!"'s, but I underestimated the attention span of three year olds.  It generally last a whole 30 seconds before Princess K falls into a laughing fit with a "brother wins!".  This is the ONLY game that she doesn't mind losing to her brother.

I think at this point, I should add a caveat and say that not EVERYTHING is a competition with these two.  The fighting spirit leaves them completely when it comes to clean up time.  They have absolutely no problems whatsoever letting the other one win when it comes to cleanup time.

Now, out of curiosity, what is some of YOUR favorite competitions among your own children?  What do you do to keep the sibling rivalry from driving you off the deep end?