June 11, 2010

Emotions running high today!!

I've heard it said that daughters come with much more emotion then do sons. After today, I would whole-heartedly agree with that statement!

Not sure why, maybe something in the air, or our water, but my two precious daughters were amped up with emotions today. There was so much crying and whining and tattling, even the boys were unnerved by it all. Did I mention how many tears there were? And to think, we haven't even hit puberty yet (scary thought!).

The icing on the cake though was when Gracie went to play with a neighborhood friend and came home in hysterics. Brendan had gone to get her for me and he was beside himself - just didn't know what to do with this basket case of a sister.

Apparently this little girl was not very kind to Gracie while she was there. She was pouting because her other friend couldn't come over, so she had no interest in playing with Gracie. Everything Gracie suggested the girl mocked, criticized and shot down. The girl was bragging about how much fun her and this other friend have together and all the things they'd been doing lately. Needless to say, Gracie was crushed.

It was my first experience with a "mean girls" situation. Is it normal that I wanted to go give that little girl a piece of my mind - and her mother too? Such a fleshly response...I know. It was almost surprising how much the Mama Bear defenses kicked in, wow!

But in all honesty it broke my heart to listen to my daughter blubber away, snot running down her face, huge alligator tears gushing everywhere...it was a sight that's for sure.

What do you say? How do you handle that? I wanted to hug her and tell her what a meanie that girl is and that she doesn't deserve to have Gracie as a friend anyway. But the Spirit helped me to have some self-control over my tongue. I think I said the right things. She eventually stopped crying so I hope I handled it well.

Such is parenting though, right? I mean we lean on the Holy Spirit, try our best and leave it in God's hands.

Too bad children don't come with a How to Guide...or one of those "For Dummies" books.

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