Monday, March 16, 2015

Cats and dogs call a truce

My children fight.  Daily.   

They fight over anything, and some days  it feels like everything. 
Who got the bigger half of a Zooper Dooper. Who gets to sit in the preferred car seat.  Who is playing with which wrestler.  It goes on and on.  

Siblings are 'safe' to fight with I guess.  I remember feeling this way with my five siblings.  They can't suddenly decide not to be your sibling anymore.  So we feel all our feelings out in the open and it ends up spewing all over those we love most.  It's not ideal, but it happens.  

Because our boys fight like cats and dogs, I treasure the moments they get along.  I treasure them, but I dare not vocalise how nice it is to see them getting along so well, as the second those words pass my lips, it's like I cursed them both and it all falls apart into fighting again.  

They fought a lot over the weekend, and thankfully Monday rolled around and they had to go back to school because I got sick of refereeing their little dramas.  We try to teach them to resolve things themselves as much as possible, but we need a third child so their vote doesn't always end in one vs one with us needing to make the final call.

This afternoon, Tony mentioned something small, that was actually a 'big something'.  We almost could have missed it.  He said he left his hat at his friends house that morning and that his friend would bring it to school tomorrow.  

That could have been it.  But thankfully we asked a follow up question.  

Seeing as their school has the "no hat, no play" rule, I asked Tony what he did at lunch then with no hat.  He said Carter was nice and gave him his hat to use for the day.  I could see it wasn't a big deal to him.  I asked;

"What about Carter?  If you had his hat, what did he do?"

And Tony shrugged his shoulders and replied;

"Oh he probably just played handball under the covered play area."

Carter came down the hallway right then so we asked what he did at lunch time and who he played with seeing as he couldn't play in his normal area without a hat.  

He said matter-of-factly;

"I had to stay under cover so I didn't really play with anyone."

 He didn't seem to mind, but I saw Tony's face drop when he realised that Carter giving up his hat for Tony meant Carter was giving up his play time with his friends, but that he did it willingly for Tony.  Tony had just assumed he had still been able to play with his friends, but when he learned what had really happened, he sat next to Carter and have him a hug and thanked him.  

They have spent the rest of the afternoon playing perfectly together.  I know it could have been missed, and that they will probably go back to fighting again tomorrow, but I'm so glad that for an afternoon they can see each other the way we always hope they can. 

1 comment:

  1. This is beautiful Jo. A moment of brotherly love that may have been overlooked had you not delved a little further. You're raising great little men! xxooo

    ReplyDelete