The Calm After

Kiki babysat this evening. Bedtime did not go well. There was apparently a showdown between Kiki and Gleek that involved yelling and screaming from both of them. But Kiki did manage to get Gleek into bed. Then Kiki called me. She needed to confess and decompress about the yelling. I totally knew what she went through because I’ve been there. Often. Except that I’m usually dealing with four recalcitrant children instead of just three. Kiki spent a few minutes talking it through and we hung up.

When I got home I found Kiki in the rocking chair with almost-asleep Gleek in her lap. There had been apologies. There had been loving and snuggling. Kiki got to hear how Gleek talks through her emotions after the storm is all over. Apparently Gleek’s heart covered pajamas had become a conversational visual aid. One of the hearts has a bandaid and it represented how Gleek was feeling because of the yelling. The heart with round circles is how Gleek feels when she is taking a bath. The heart with tiny hearts all over is how Gleek feels when she is being loved. By the time I arrived they were all done with the bandaid heart and were well into the heart-filled heart.

I looked at my two girls there and realized that this is the first time they have ever seen a conflict all the way through to resolution. usually I step in and force them apart. I then talk to them separately and try to get them to see the other side. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn’t. But either way they don’t end up snuggled up together on a rocking chair being sisters. That only happens when they go all the way through the storm together and come out the other side. They achieved remorse and forgiveness and restitution all without my help. I’m so glad of it that I want to cry. For once Kiki was willing to acknowledge that Gleek is adorable and amazing. Gleek always thinks that Kiki is amazing.

I helped tuck the two girls into their beds and they both fell into an exhausted slumber. Tomorrow we’ll probably be back to the regular bickering, but I don’t think it will ever be quite the same because once you’ve survived a storm with someone, you can’t forget that you loved them enough to forgive. What the storm does not destroy, it makes stronger.