My husband and I packed up our kids for a sabbatical year move to Europe last year. The Move, with four boys - aged 8, 6, 3 and nine months - stroller, backpacks, suitcases and no car, was pretty grim.
As the kids slept off their motion sickness on the train, I stood peering out at the Alps from the tiny window on the stairwell of the rail car, shushing the crying baby. I was hopeful. Hopeful this trip was going to be good for them.
Before we left, as I folded and packed our way out of our house in Kingston, I tucked away the knowledge that the brothers were not being as friendly as I once thought. I was enjoying their company immensely, as I thought they were, but then I looked closer.
Brothers one and two were racing home after school, but only to discover if their toys had been tampered with by brothers three and four. Signs declaring "Keep out or else!" appeared on doors. "Sorry" was delivered without feeling. More often than not, the brothers preferred to play with their own friends instead of together.
Normal behaviour perhaps, but packing aside, the household was becoming frazzled and competitive. I worried about whether they were going to be interested in their baby brother. The age difference seemed huge. It was no city of brotherly love.
I remembered watching my two older brothers bond while they tried to lose me on bike rides as we grew up. I wanted a sister and was too engrossed in making best friends of my own to pay much attention. My brothers live blocks apart now, and I wonder what special connection they share, and how they got that way. The secrets of the sisterhood felt clear, but what about this ya-ya brotherhood?
With thoughts of four teenage boys looming in my head, I wondered if there was something special I needed to do to make sure they would bond. What was the alternative if they didn't? It was a few days before we left for our family time-out, and I felt like I was cramming for an exam.
I polled friends who had seemingly enviable bonds with their siblings: Were they something more than friends to each other? What did having a brother mean? How did they get this way?
I pestered my friend with five children whose own family spent every year on a family holiday. What did she know about siblings who bond? She just shrugged.
Other answers were unpredictably varied. Friday pizza nights and fun nights. Mandatory family dinners. No closed doors. Closed doors. Common space. Private space.
Nothing was clear. No books would help. We would have to figure it out for ourselves.
Our trip took us first to France, where my husband, an engineering professor, spent time working at a university. We had no real plan for creating our small city of brotherly love. We settled into a two-bedroom house stripped to basics. There were no swimming lessons, hockey, soccer, music classes, English television, video games or school. The toy quota had been set firmly at two brought from home. While the boys duelled with their baguette lightsabers, and ate a lot of cereal to get the surprise toys inside, I waited to see what would unfold.
On travel days touring nearby cities, the boys' natural instinct was more than ever to stick together. Jumping onto trains they grabbed hands and stroller bars with precision and confidence. A far cry from the usual lagging behind pretending they weren't a part of the family back home.
After our visits to gladiator arenas and castles and ruins, the boys became transfixed on being Romans and knights. The fighting became imaginary. Mostly. For the real fights we seemed to have far more time than we needed to get to the bottom of the problem. Each "sorry" was dramatic and meaningful. There seemed to be no lingering anger any more.
In between home school lessons, the older boys took turns teaching and reading to their little brothers. Their few toys were stockpiled together. Bike rides were a maze of bike lanes and new traffic signals, and the boys fell into line behind one another in expectation of adventure and fun.
Our last move to Belgium put us in a beautiful five-bedroom house, but two of the rooms remained empty. Their choice. The three older boys dragged their mattresses into a room together to share the few English books we found each week in the library. And to talk.
They were in no danger of becoming family singers or a boy band, but I could see something growing. Solidarity. Appreciation. Enjoyment. Acceptance. Friendship. During our nearly seven months away, the boys came to know and care about each other. I didn't have to referee as much. I could see they were ready to share. Not just their toys, but themselves.
It took a trip halfway around the world to find it, but I think we stumbled on a key to a republic of brotherly love, and I'm not letting it go.
Nicola Diak lives in Kingston, Ont.