The other night at bedtime, Lucy was telling me and Brandon that she wanted to be part of Aeli's family and to live over there. I wasn't offended by this request at all - I know that she loves playing over at Aeli's house and they have lots of great toys and lots of great food (she always eats corn dogs, hot dogs, pasta, etc over there). Lucy's friendship with Aeli has been my salvation since Grey has been born and I can't give Lucy as much attention as before so I'm extremely grateful for her family.
We explained to her that if she was part of Aeli's family and lived with them, that we (me and Brandon), would no longer be her mommy and daddy and that Grey would not be her brother. She said that she was okay with that - she might miss me a little but not daddy. I'm not sure if she was frustrated because bedtime is always a fight - getting her to put on her pajamas, brush her teeth, and go to the bathroom before bed - even choosing books for story time. It seems like we have to ask her a million times before she listens to us and then we get angry and start having to threaten to take tokens away and she gets upset. You know how it goes...and we as parents think we are doing the right thing by giving her limits and structure, even if she gets mad at us and thinks it is unfair that she can't stay up (although our actual rule is that she doesn't have to go to sleep, she just needs to be in her room and can continue to play if she wants after she is ready for bed).
Later that night, when she was finally in bed, she started crying. Brandon went in to comfort her but she wouldn't tell him what was wrong and wanted to talk to me. So I went in and knelt by her bed and asked her what was wrong. She tearfully told me that she still wanted to be a part of our family and that she loved us both. She was so sincere about the whole thing - like leaving our family was even a possibility. It was pretty tender - that definitely pulled at my heartstrings. And I told her how much we both loved her and that I was glad to be her mommy even though it was hard and frustrating at times and that sometimes I made mistakes.
I ended by telling her that she could be a part of Aeli's family and still be a part of our family if she married Aeli's older brother, Willem or younger brother, Eli. She has been saying for a little while that she wants to marry Willem. My realization is that this is an actual possibility and might come sooner than I think...but right now, we will just keep plugging away at making bedtime just a little less stressful for all of us.
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