Rise & Shine

My only day off in nine days and I wake-up to screaming kids. My day off coincided with the children's school day-observance of President’s Day. I knew I was going to have to watch them and I had plans to take them out to run errands with me. Justice hates to go, but Free loves it. I'm still going to take them out, but I had to play mediator / life coach first – parenting.

Justice damaged one of Free's dollhouses. I'm not sure if he did it intentionally. He's a boy. He was playing Army raid on her dollhouse and broke a door and a window. It really wasn't that bad, but Free is a girly-girl and it upset her. She started crying and yelling at him which made him respond by yelling back, because he didn't think it was that bad. I woke up.

I'm not a yeller (really), but I did have the intention of yelling when I woke up to screaming kids. Free is ten-years-old and Justice is eight. They are not toddlers. When I entered the room, they were in a yelling match and didn't even notice me. For a moment I stopped and looked into the future. I envision them as adults fighting like this and I didn't like that vision. It scared me. I listened to what they were fighting over and looked at the dollhouse to inspect the damage. They finally noticed me in the room. "Mom! Justice broke my dollhouse. Tell him to stop playing with my things."
"I didn't mean to break the stupid window on your dollhouse!"
"Yes you did!"

I picked up the broken window piece. It only needed some glue. I looked at the door and it was completely broken off the hinges of the dollhouse. It needed to be replaced. The children, my children, became calm observing my energy in response to theirs. I didn't' yell. I didn't choose sides. I didn’t accuse or attack. I told Justice to go get some glue from the junk drawer in the kitchen. He didn't argue. He went to get it. I picked up the broken door pieced and asked Free if she wanted it replaced or could we just leave it off? She was still upset and so she said she wanted it replaced. I said, "Okay." Justice returned with the glue. I told him he'd have to take money from his piggy bank to pay for the door on the dollhouse to be replaced. He said, "okay" but he said it with a sense of force. I told him to come over to me. He did. I took my left arm and hugged him close. I took the broken dollhouse door and put it in his hand. I kissed him on the cheek and told him thank you for being a responsible young man and replacing your sister's door. I then called Free over and hugged her with my other free arm (no pun intended :-) ). I kissed her on the cheek and told them both, "We are a family. We work together. We respect each other. We work things out. When you both become older, you will need each other. If something ever happened to me, you both would need to stick together." Justice started crying and told Free “Sorry.” She came over and hugged her little brother. I hugged them both and everyone had tears, but the tears were happy tears. Justice said, "Mommy, I don't want you to go away." I smiled at his love for me. I hugged my big, strong baby boy and told him “Mama's not going anywhere no time soon. You owe me grandkids.” We both smiled. Then I told them to get ready because we were going out for pizza (and errands :-) ).

No, I didn't wake-up the way I thought I should have, but I wouldn't trade how I woke up for anything. Well, I have to go Cuddlebug. I miss you a lot. I hope and pray you come home soon. Your niece and nephew want to meet you real bad. I love you, Cuddlebug. You know how to reach me. I can't wait to hear from you.