Connection

Sometimes I am struck by how different my children are from me. How different they are from each other.  This whole idea of being related but being so different is foreign to me. I'm an only child from a relatively small family.

When I look at my children, I see the strings that connect me to them, as if we each had a string tied around our wrist, and stretching out to the other.  I like purple, so it's a purple string in my mind.  If I pull too tightly on the string, it could cause them pain, or possibly even break.  If I don't leave enough slack in the string, then they won't find their own way.

So often I feel like the grouchy parent.  Last night, he was out running some errands. I was in my room watching TV, and the girls were playing.  There was laughter that quickly turned to yelling.  I got up, prepared to unleash my wrath at how rude they were being to each other.  I went to the door of their room only to find the younger tickling the elder unmercilessly. It was hilarious. I started laughing. The elder said "don't just stand there! do something already!" I couldn't, I was laughing too hard.  At one point, the younger said "let me at that tummy! let me at that tummy!" nestling her head around, trying to tickle her sister's stomach. It was too much. I laughed so hard I had tears coming down my face.

When the tickle fest came to a close, we had the obligatory talk about respecting someone else's body, etc...

I'm glad that I took the moment to observe and ultimately enjoy before going straight to the discipline.

*i normally feel stupid trying to express my feelings or inner thoughts in writing b/c they don't ever come out right - that's why i stick to stories or "here's what happened" - so this was my little foray into trying to explain what was going through my medicine-addled head as i lay here resting up from an upper respiratory infection.