My little girl has learned the word "please." She quickly figured out that this was the most powerful word in her limited vocabulary.

Someday I will be immune to her sweet and guileless pleas and will regain my use of her other new word, "no." Until then, she is the master.

Her 8-year-old brother hasn't yet stopped to ponder why he can whine "please, please, please, please, please" to no avail, while all his sister has to do is shout "peas!" to get what she wants.

He'll figure it out soon. I'm dreading that moment, because I know there's no way I'll be able to make him understand that there's a difference between "Please can I have a Mickey Mouse computer?" and "Please can I have some milk?"

I try my best not to play favorites with my kids. Unfortunately, with a seven-year age difference, it's pretty much impossible to treat them equally. A toddler and a third-grader have wildly different needs.

In my quest for a little peace, I've read enough advice on sibling rivalry to write a book myself. The problem is that in all my reading I haven't actually found a strategy that works.

If I take one of them out for one-on-one time, the other one is sure to feel abandoned. If my daughter has to go hang with daddy while I help her brother with homework, chances are she'll cry pitifully or sneak back in to crumple the papers.

Whenever my daughter invents a new game, trust my son to jump in as soon as he hears her squeal of glee.

These days I've given up on total family harmony and am just trying to make sure that neither child cries for more than two minutes at a stretch.

I'm sure that there are moms out there who successfully manage to convince both kids they are getting equal doses of love and attention.

The moms I really want to hear from, though, are those that agree that there's no way to keep both kids satisfied.

My mom warned me, but I didn't listen. I still suspect she loves my brother more than me, so she has ulterior motives for persuading me that rivalry is inevitable.

I'm just kidding, I think. I concede that when I was younger I kept a mental tally of who got what, and there was no way for my parents to justify the differences.

For years I held a grudge against them for buying my brother a Nintendo system when he was in elementary school, even though I had always been denied an Atari. It's only recently that my parents have been able to make me remember that yes, my brother got a Nintendo, but around the same time I got my first computer — an Atari ST. Oops.

I guess I kind of deserve what I've been dealt.

Still, don't I deserve a break for being mature enough to admit the errors of my youth?

Please?