"Why can't we have Jack's sweet coffee."

Calder loves his drinks. At any given moment, you can find him drinking something. It could be juice, a Starbucks refresher, water, or even a dairy-free milkshake. But Calder also loves to drink everyone else's drinks even if his cup is full. We have to always be on watch because Calder might see a mug of hot coffee on the counter, take a sip, realize it's too hot, and then drop it. If you leave your drink unattended, especially if it's a Starbucks refresher, you can count on it going missing because Calder decided it was his now.

However, Calder is not entirely to blame in this situation. Despite getting angry at Calder for drinking our drinks, the reverse is also true. My brother and I used to always drink Calder's beverages, believing it to be a victimless crime. Until recently, we never thought about how Calder felt when we would take his Chick-fil-A lemonade sitting tauntingly in the fridge. We just exerted our older brother dominance and grabbed it.

But the other day, I left my coffee unattended on my desk for 5 minutes, only to come back and see that Calder had drunk about 1/2 of it and spilled the other 1/2 all over the floor. Angry, I sat him down and asked him to explain himself. Boy did I get chewed out! Calder told me about how angry he was that I could drink his drinks and he was supposed to be fine, but the second he touched my drinks he was suddenly the villain. Calder made me realize that the stealing drinks situation goes two ways and just because he's the "baby of the family" doesn't mean he's a baby. If I want him to respect my drinks, I need to respect his. So we made a bargain where I wouldn't steal his lemonade and he wouldn't swipe my coffee. So far, it's working out okay. But we still have a pan of brownies to fight over.