We've had a really long week here and our schedule dictated that no one napped today, so this evening had the potential to be horrid. However, it was going well. The bigs and I had tag teamed some cleaning while the littlest hung out in the jumperoo, then I went to make dinner while the bigs finished cleaning and the littlest giggled.
Then it happened. A potted plant went flying and dirt was everywhere!
Success #1 - I remained calm. This is pretty impressive, as my fuse for things getting broken because of reckless or thoughtless behavior is pretty much non-existent and it generally causes my lid to flip in a huge way. My flaw, I realize, but I'm just telling it like it is. This time I just quietly said it needed to be cleaned up and went about my business. No snark, no yelling, no monologue about how everyone is always ruining my stuff.
Success #2 - The little W responsible for the flying plant came to me immediately to tell me what had happened, apologized, and asked for forgiveness. No need to ask what happened or to prompt anyone to make it right.
Success #3 - A different little W immediately started to repot the plant, then went to get the vacuum and cleaned up the gigantic mess. The mess they hadn't made. No need to make sure the job got done or to talk about helping each other out.
Those three things were enough to make my day, but there's more. The mess-maker and the mess-cleaner have a relationship of extremes. Sometimes they are best buds laughing hysterically together or a cooperative team working on a project together. Sometimes they are each other's worst enemies and bicker over every. single. thing. they could possibly find to fight about. This week it's been 99% bickering between them and the remaining 1% has been when they're sleeping. It's been really bad. Which made tonight even sweeter.
I obviously wouldn't have chosen to have the plant go flying, but now I'm (sorta) glad it did because it gave me one of the "parenting is worth the work" moments we all need from time to time.
1 comment:
It's those moments of sweet interaction between the kids that make it all worth it! I'm also guessing that your being calm about the incident helped.
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