Finding the Balance

We are having an interesting time in our house lately. I'm not sure what's going on, but I'm sure there are a combination of factors that are playing into the goings on of our little home. I'm pretty sure that I don't feel well yet so my patience wears a bit thin after working all day. The girls are tired from being back at school after a fun Christmas break. Focus is hard. Attention is not on homeword. We miss our California family. Life in general right now is still working on finding our usual rhythm. Amelia is usually my level-headed one. Emerson is strong-willed and is sometimes sneaky and like to pick on her sister and cause a little bit of trouble. Amelia is the one that I can usually count on to be kind to her sister. She is compliant and follows my directions. She is my little helper. I can tell her to go and do her homework and she sits right down and completes it on her own. But, not lately. She is distracted. She is whiny. She picks on her sister just to get a rise out of her. These things have happened for the past couple days. Bath time has been cut short because she is a bit mean. Story time isn't our usual calm, snuggly time. It's just been...different. Tonight in the tub, for no reason, she scratched Emerson. She just lashed out and scratched her across the chest. I looked at her with my best mom look and asked her what she was doing. "Sorry, Em..." was her reply. Emerson didn't seem too upset by it so we continued playing. Emerson filled her little cup with cold water out of the tap and was drinking it and Amelia hit the bottom of the cup as Emerson was drinking out of it. I again looked at Amelia with even more exasperation. "What are you doing?" "I don't know. I just wanted to." "Well, we need to be done with bath because I'm not going to leave you here so you can keep hurting your sister." And bath ended...and Amelia started to cry. I ignored it for the most part because for the past few days this is what our nighttime routine has eventually led to. Amelia then took off running out of the bathroom to her room. I continued to ignore her. Emerson picked out story for the night and she and I settled into bed and waiting for Amelia. I could hear her crying in her bedroom. "Amelia? Come on! We're going to read now." "I'm not coming!" "What? Yes you are. This is YOUR homework." "No, I'm not. I'm the worst sister in the whole world and I'm embarrassed." "Come on, Amelia." Amelia slowly walked into my bedroom and sat at the foot of my bed on the floor and kept crying. Emerson walked to the foot of the bed and hung over the side. "Come on, La!" Emerson encouraged her sister to join us. "No! I'm not coming up. I don't deserve to be with you guys." "La! I forgive you! I'm OK. I'm not hurt! Come read with us." Slowly, Emerson begged her sissy to come up to the bed and read with us and before long, we were well into Poppy the Piano Fairy. After the story, I got the girls' waters and went to Amelia's room to tuck her in. "Just one more thing, mommy?" "Of course, Amelia." "Mommy, I'm sorry I was mean to Emerson." "It's not ok to hurt your sister, but I'm glad that you two worked it out and we could move on." "I don't think I've moved on. I'm sad for what I did to my sister." "I know...but something that I've learned is you can't keep dwelling on the negative things. You have to make peace with your past so it doesn't ruin the present." "What does that mean?" "Well, what's our most favorite time of the whole day?" "Reading together." "Right. And you were sad and upset from what happened with Emerson. So, instead of being ok and moving on, you were going to continue to cry and be mad and miss story time. Not only were you going to let this one thing mess up bathtime fun, you were going to let it carry into the rest of our nighttime routine." "Oh, I see. It was sure nice of Emerson to forgive me, wasn't it?" "It was very nice! And I'm proud of her for doing that. And I know you were still sad, but it was over and time to be done so it didn't get in the way of the rest of our evening." "Yes, mommy. You're right. I'll try to remember that next time. Oh wait...there won't be a next time." "I'm sure there will be a next time, honey. But we'll work together to remember that it's done and over and time to move on." "I love you, mommy...good night." "Good night, Amelia." And I walked to the living room. Sometimes as a mom, I feel like such a hypocrite! I preach things to my kids that sound so good, like the message I just typed above, but do I practice what I preach? Far from it! I guess part of the preaching to my kids helps with reminders to me that I need to follow suit and do the same. There have been many event that have happened in my life that have gotten me stuck. They happened and I should have let them go, but I didn't. I struggled with a piece of my past and I had a hard time letting go. I had a hard time moving forward. And it messed with my present! And I know that there is some hierarchy to this. There are some events that happen that should never have any time wasted on them. And there are some things that happen that are no doubt going to bog you down for a while. I tend to stew and worry about everything. EVERYTHING!! I have to stew and vent and mull over every tiny little thing. And this is where it gets silly. Because sometimes I am so busy fretting about something from the past that it prevents me from enjoying the present. And it's silly! Sometimes it is necessary. Sometimes there are things in life that happen that need your time and attention, but at some point it's time to make peace with the past so that you can live in your present! The other end of this are the things that happened that I didn't deal with at all, and they have come full circle to bite me in the butt. That's not the way either. There is a delicate balance of fretting, and I am not the person that should be giving advice on this at all! Ha! So, don't be reading into this as a manual for fretting. Because I kind of run on the two extremes. Either fret about it non-stop, obsess, lose sleep, spiral up, and add a million different "what ifs" to the worrying scenario. Or, don't think about it at all. Shove it down as far as you can and let it fester until one day it just explodes. But somewhere between those two extremes is the healthy processing of information that needs to happen. Somewhere in there is the correct way to grieve and be sad, or be angry, or deal with things that come up. I've gotten a lot of practice, and I have a lot of learning to do on this topic. But maybe, as I teach my daughter the balance, I'll pick up some good information from myself. It is a delicate balance and I am far from an expert. But, I'm getting stronger every day and I have realized that there is life out there...amazing life! And I can't sit back anymore and let my past mess up my present. Is this a perfect system that I have? Absolutely not! But I'm dealing with things as they come up, and moving forward when I can! And hopefully, I'll be able to help Amelia to do that same.