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Gun Violence Continues to Kill Our Children

/ legreene515 / 4 Comments

Today, a shooter went into a high school in Santa Fe, TX and killed at least 8 students. There may be more casualties. This is breaking news. What? You’re not shocked. If not, maybe it’s because since Sandy Hook, in the U.S. a gun has been fired on school grounds at least once a week. Maybe it’s because it has become almost commonplace for us to think a shooter *may* at some point show up at our children’s school. Maybe it’s because we know that all the pro-gun advocates have to offer up is more thoughts and prayers without a solution to this problem. We think it’s normal to tell our children to make sure they know where their safe place is. We think it’s normal to tell them to look out for children who may be carrying guns. I have news for you: this is not normal.

Some pro-gun people will tout that gun laws strip them of their second amendment rights. If you say something like the forefathers did not foresee these type of guns, they will laugh in your face. Their solution is to give guns to teachers. Their solution is to train teachers how to shoot an intruder. Since when is this a teacher’s duty? Don’t teachers already do enough? What are the psychological effects of a teacher killing a previous student, even if they previous student is doing harm to someone in the classroom? Can these questions even be answered? One school district even gave teachers tiny baseball bats to fend off intruders. That would be laughable if it wasn’t so sad.

The problem is, as soon as anyone brings up gun control, the pro-gun people go nuts.

“They want to take away our guns. What if the government goes berserk and I need them to create my own militia?”

I’m telling you–the government is already berserk. As soon at they shot down reasonable gun control laws after Sandy Hook they had betrayed the trust of the American people. They’re continuing to allow children to DIE because of money they’ve received from the NRA. Money and profits are more important to your government than putting their citizens first with reasonable gun control laws. No one wants to take away all the guns (well, I’m sure someone does, but that’s not what I’m advocating).

How many times do I have to blog about this? How many kids have to die before someone will do something to change the way things are? . This is not working for our U.S. Do we really want to send our kids to school in fear that their life could be snuffed out in a place where they are supposed to feel safe?

If you want to be shocked read this article on the LA Times and scroll down through the list of gun activity at schools:

Since Sandy Hook, a gun has been fired on school grounds nearly once a week

Or this article on Vox:

After Sandy Hook we said never again. And then we let 1,650 mass shootings happen.*

*It should be noted that the Vox article exaggerates. They consider a mass shooting an incident in which 4 or more people are killed. These could be any type of murders, not just in the school. Also, if the definition of 4 or more people is used as a mass shooting, then the mass shooting in Benton, KY would not count (2 killed, 18 injured). This is all semantics, and of course VOX is trying to get views by throwing that large number out there, but there is truth to the number out there just not in an apples to apples sort of way.

Anyway, my point is something needs to be done. We need better gun control laws. We need to figure out what’s going on with the white boys and why they feel like they need to go shoot up schools. Are we failing them? Probably. We need to make things right for our children by enacting commonsense gun control laws.

Every time I hear one of these stories it saddens me, but it also disgusts me that the U.S. continues to turn a blind eye. That ain’t justice or freedom. American children are living their lives in fear.

Here’s Three Commonsense Gun Laws we can fight for:

  1. National permit-to-purchase: policy requiring permits and background check before allowing someone to buy a firearm.
  2. No guns to violent offenders/domestic violence perpetrators: This law explains itself.
  3. Banning certain assault weapons, bumper stocks: What is the intent of these weapons? It’s not to go hunting. This is the law the pro-gun people have the hardest thing when. They don’t want anyone taking their guns. But after the Parkland shooting, the police stations saw people readily giving up their AR-15 and other assault-style weapons.

These are just three laws that would be well worth fighting for the reduce the number of casualties from gun violence every year. This type of gun control has been shown to work in other countries.

It’s time to make a change, America.

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Rules Are Made to Be Broken

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I have a thirteen year old. I like to award him his privacy, and I rarely discuss my children on this blog. He missed an assignment in his Honors English class on haikus. I told my husband, and he said in honor of this day, we should only speak in haikus.

I sent him a haiku (three lines), and he replied back in haiku, of course:

The proper format
Haiku five seven five
Sorry about head

I have a headache today. But I must keep working through it.

Isn’t his haiku 5/6/5? The (1) proper (2) format (2) = 5. Haiku (2) five (1) seven (2) five (1) = 6. Sorry (2) about (2) head (1) = 5. I digress…

I find it funny Hubby is schooling me on correct haiku format. He gets irritated when I correct his grammar. How many times have I had to tell him which of these little words to use: you’re, your, their, there, and they’re?  I had to look up haikus, because, God forbid he be right.And he was right. Except that in the 17th Century, many poets broke away from the 5/7/5 form and just made a haiku a three lined poem. That’s because rules are made to be broken. But my husband likes it old school apparently. Not me. My motto has always been rules were made to be broken, or at least bent. I’m sure this made me a difficult teenager.

In honor of Hubby, I’ve written a couple of haikus that follow the 5/7/5 rule and a few that don’t. Enjoy. And hopefully Son Number One will complete his work, and I won’t have to give him a consequence.

Rustling wind moves leaves. (5)
On this clear first day of Spring, (7)
cold air tells the lie. (5)

Baby feet have grown (5)
too fast. Forgotten toys put (7)
away for electronics. (7)

Sweet sorrow of love (5)
that cannot be. Replaced by (7)
longing for the past. (5)

Sweat pours down my face. (5)
Running off the blueberry donut. (8)
The price of sugar. (5)

Apparently I’m not great at these. Maybe some of you masters of haiku can put a few in the comments. I plan to write a flash fiction piece for Chuck Wendig’s blog at some point this week. I’ve been working on a novel (different from my almost completed piece), but mostly I’ve been spending time with family lately.

Don’t forget to leave
a comment below, so I
know you are reading.

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The Rambler

/ legreene515 / 2 Comments

Welcome back. Oh wait, I mean, you’ve been here so I am really just welcoming myself back. Life happened, and I realized this AM I had not blogged in a month. The strange thing is, I’ve been writing–well, at least a little bit. I have been working on my novel again. Mainly, I need to finish and then edit. This is what I’m very bad at doing. Editing seems like the dregs to me, and where is the time? It takes me a good three hours to be invested in editing my work, and there are no three-hour time slots open any where in my life.

But life is good, mostly. Good but stressful. I’ve made some great friends lately, and I’ve put myself out there. This is good, because I was having a near constant desire to sit in the blue easy chair, drink a Truly or two or three, and watch Netflix. I find leaving the house is the hardest before you actually do it. Like, it takes a lot of motivation to get off my butt and actually go out and be with people, but once I do it I love it.

I wanted to write about the Parkland shooting, because it’s never too soon to talk about common sense gun control. Last week, I blogged about it in my head. But then I thought, this is never going to change anything. My goal is to become involved in Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. This, I know, is the right thing to do. I have three kids, and I don’t want their right to life to be trumped by someone else’s right to own an AR-15. I know not everyone agrees with me, but I think the high school students speaking up for themselves, staging walk-outs and protests, is truly amazing. Folks, this is how democracy works.

And mental health? Why can’t it be both? I want our country to take mental health issues more seriously. It’s hard to get adequate care in this country. But so many people need it. I can’t tell you how much I’ve paid out of pocket to see therapists in my lifetime. And you know what–it helped me! And there’s nothing shameful about that. Get rid of the stigma surrounding mental health. That would be a nice place to start. Our boys (because those are usually the perpetrators of these crimes) need to learn self-control and self-regulation. I don’t think every violent crime is done by someone with mental health problems. I think ANGER is a huge issue in our society. Anger leads to domestic violence situations, mass shootings, as well as homicides. I think our boys have a lot of anger because they’ve been taught their whole lives to swallow their feelings. Well, that’s not doing anyone any good. Anger management needed, yes! Therapy or someone to talk to needed, yes. Let’s change society for the better. What’s wrong with doing that?

I promise, I’ll blog more. I have finished Waking Up White and need to blog about some of the ideas from reading and pondering over that book. I also am planning on writing a flash fiction piece and getting it posted. Here’s to more words more often.

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Random Thoughts Blog

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This weekend, I thought about how texting prohibits you from hearing someone’s voice. I admit, I text way more often than I talk on the phone. I’ve never been a great phone talker. There are a lot of empty spaces. I like to see people’s body language when I talk to them, and for some reason I feel self-conscious on the phone.

We were out at a birthday party, and Darling Daughter came up to me to tell me something funny. She is a happy child. Laughs and giggles and takes everything in stride. I think it’s an amazing attribute to her personality. I told her, “I kinda like you, gal.” Gipop, my grandfather, used to always say that to me. I could hear his voice echoing in my head. It made me miss him, but it also made me miss my sisters’ voices and my brother’s voice. I don’t talk to them often enough. There simply isn’t enough time. And the world nowadays is all about convenience. I fall back on texting a lot, but I need to make that change.

I like to be lazy on the weekends and play Civilization on the PC. I play an old version. It must be about 5 years old. My dad played it when I was growing up. And so maybe that’s the reason I like it. I’m a pacifist, but when it come to Civ I’m a warmonger. My favorite thing to do is to build up my military and take over other countries. I wonder what this says about me!

This year, Hubby and I are hosting Thanksgiving. My brother’s family will be there. Two of my aunts and their  families. My cousin with a baby who I’m dying to meet! I’m nervous and keep thinking I’m forgetting something. I woke up at 3 AM wondering if I needed to buy Sprite for the kids. Insomnia over Sprite, people! In the South, we make a lot of casseroles for Thanksgiving. I think ours will mostly center around dessert though. Son Number Two wants to make cherry pie, and I’m already making black bottom cupcakes. I think one of the things we’ll be missing this year is sweet potato casserole. Oh well.

This past weekend, I tried to do some intentional things with the kids so we weren’t just potatoes lying around on the couch. I went to Darling Daughter’s parent observation ballet class. She laughed the entire time. I hope she does a better job concentrating when I’m not there.

Laughing Through Ballet

Hubby and I took all the kids to the playground. Even the thirteen year old participated. Miracle of miracles.

son-number-1.jpgSon Number 2

This week, I’m going to work on writing again. I know my blog has been sparse. It’s been busy up in here!

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Education Smeducation

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Last night was one of those nights where you cringe as a parent. Son Number One had a soccer game at 6:30 which meant we wouldn’t be coming home until 7:30ish. All the kids did their homework before I came home so we had dinner, and then we went to the soccer game.

Son Number Two had to work on a catapult, study for spelling and math, and then study for two other tests. Did I mention he’s in third grade? Before we left for the soccer game, he lamented about school. “I’m just a kid. I have too much homework tonight. And I have to study so much.” He cried, real tears people. And it made me wonder: what the fork are we doing to our kids (thank you Kristen Bell from The Good Place, that’s now my favorite non-cuss word)?

I sympathize with Son Number Two as we wrapped up our catapult and crammed spelling words in and finally sat down to read at 8:30 PM last night. School isn’t fun anymore. It’s standards and tests. And funding. And it’s not about educating the kids anymore. It’s about schools meeting numbers and making test scores. It’s about politics that hurt kids, drive continued segregation in our schools, and take funding away from the schools that need it most. Our children are learning how to take tests. They’re not learning how to think creatively and socialize and get along with peers anymore. Perhaps they get some of that in Maker’s Labs or STEM classes if they go to a school like Son Number Two’s where they’re lucky enough to have it. Heck, my twelve year old art-loving child doesn’t even have an art class at his school. But perhaps the real travesty is there isn’t enough time for play. For kids to be kids. Not only at school, but also at home.

playground-clipart-RTd6ndjT9

Most of our children don’t even have recess, or they go outside for 20 minutes a day tops. Children need a mental break to be able to keep working. When was the last time you sat at your desk for an hour? Even adults need mental breaks. At work, we socialize. We get up and walk around when we need to retrain our brain. These breaks allow us to refocus when we sit down to do our work again. Can’t we give our children the same benefit?

When I was a kid in the 1980’s, we played all the time. I went to Dannelly Elementary. I remember spending time outside on the baseball field playing games, and hanging upside down from the monkey bars for what seemed like hours on the playground. On rainy days playing four-square or jumped rope in the trailer (I’m from the South People–double-wides have a lot of uses). Somehow, teachers knew appropriate development included plenty of play and movement. I’m sure we had homework, but I don’t remember feeling stressed when I was seven years old or nine years old. I remember having plenty of time to come home, ride my bike, play in my backyard, to be a kid.

My education in the ‘80s wasn’t perfect. I don’t think I learned fractions until I was 18. I somehow missed that coming along. I had a huge gap of knowledge, but there didn’t seem to be anyone to point out to my parents that I struggled with math. I also had low self esteem, because I was bullied for having alopecia. These were things I mostly kept to myself as I have never been one to rock the boat. Perhaps, I should have learned long ago that rocking the boat sometimes leads to beneficial change. But, I did develop social skills that benefit me in life.

Look at successful people: most of them have wonderful social skills. If we don’t value play and socializing in our school system, our children will not learn how to work together. They won’t learn the right way to socialize and get along with others.

I’m sad my kids are stressed. I’m sad they’re growing up not loving school. Yes, I think it’s normal for middle-schoolers and even high-schoolers not to like school. But elementary? It should be fun. It shouldn’t make a nine year old cry on a Monday night because he’s stressed out. That’s good for no one. I’m not sure what the solution is, but what’s going on in our system right now is not working. And something has to change.

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Total Eclipse of the Sun

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Total Eclipse

Today, there is a solar eclipse. We don’t exactly get total. We are in the path of about 90% totality. Pretty awesome. I’ve been super excited about this event. I have my glasses (no, you can’t have them!). And my kids have been excited too.

In fact, our kids’ schools didn’t plan ahead for some reason. Apparently, the glasses have been on sale for a year but the schools still didn’t get glasses. They’re sold out pretty much everywhere. I signed permission slips at 2 out of 3 schools for the kids to watch. The little one is watching on NASA, and she’s fine with that. I mean, why watch the real thing when you can just watch it on T.V.?

We are checking out our oldest son, because he doesn’t think he will be able to watch it. He has Technology that period. I think it’s a travesty that a STEM school isn’t watching the eclipse. But what do I know?

I do know that parents have been freaking out about this. They’re worried about retina damage. My middle son has overheard me and is now worried about this too. This summer, he was worried about mad cow disease. I see anxiety meds in his future.

I trust the teachers at my kids’ school to make informed decisions. I understand, in a middle school, that allowing some kids to do it and some kids not to might not be a feasible option. I hope they’ll understand when my kid is checked out so he can see this amazing science event.

There is a risk to anything in life. And yes, you can go blind from looking at the sun. But you can also teach your children the right way. I coached my child today. I told him where to look. I told him it would be okay if he follows directions and listens to the teachers. We can’t protect our kids from everything. I’d rather mine see the eclipse in person than worry about the rare chance that they are going to burn their retina. Read the article (out of 45 people, 4 had lasting damage). Don’t look at the sun without protective eyewear. Duh.

But I’m not going to judge. And I understand the worry and the want to protect the kids. I just think for my kids actually watching it will be something they’ll remember for the rest of their lives! And that’s pretty cool.

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Going Ons

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Hello Lovelies! I’ve been busy lately, and I’ve neglected my blog again. I’m sorry about that. Here’s a little bit of what’s been going on in my life.

I got a Fitbit HR Charge. It was a present to myself. I’ve been obsessively trying to beat a co-worker in steps each week. He’s short, so I think he must take about five or six strides to my one. At least that’s what I’m telling myself. The Fitbit has been motivating me to exercise more again, which is great because I had fallen off the wagon. Now, I’ve been doing Glide about three times during the week, and running about 2 times. I’m still running short distances and mostly running on the treadmill. I went out for a morning run the other day, and I had forgotten how much I liked the solitude and peace of the outdoors in the morning–not to mention the coolness, as opposed to 90+ degrees days.

My son found an Eastern Fence lizard in my parent’s yard, and he decided he had to have her as a pet. Her name’s Spikey.

IMG_2439

I spent about $100 getting this lizard set up in a cage with a thermometer, sand, water, a fake tree and a rock hiding place. I do hope she lives for a bit. We bought crickets to feed her, and we put them in a little critter keeper. They are the loudest things in the world. As I’m sitting here they are chirping and driving me nuts. At first, I felt bad that we were feeding the crickets to Spikey. But this morning, I woke up and went to get my coffee. I noticed the crickets were low on food, so I put some in their critter creeper. One of the crickets was cannibalizing the other. I had no idea they did that. Plus, the poor victim was still alive even though half his body had been eaten. Gross. I found this article about them, so I’m guessing these guys are really katydids and the lack of food in their cage led them to eat each other.

I’ve been writing again. Putting my energy into a story that is flowing better than anything I’ve written in awhile. Plus, reading. I read Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff over the weekend. I highly recommend this book, and I’m going to write a review about it a little bit later this week.

And my oldest has middle school orientation this week. Where did the time go? I thought he was still just this little baby.

DSC03030

But no. Here he is, a tween, and looking more and more grown up every day.

IMG_2402

Being a parent is so much about loving, teaching, and learning to let go. I hope I’m giving him the right tools to succeed in life. Parenting is the hardest, and every day I question myself. I used to have so much guilt in everything I did. I felt guilty for leaving him at daycare while I went to work. I felt guilty for disciplining him. I almost felt guilty for breathing. I was driving home from work the other day, and I realized that guilt is gone. Why? Because we, parents, are human and we’re doing the best we can. Because I know I am a good parent to him even on his hardest days. I know he’ll look back at his childhood and know he was loved. And that’s the most important thing, right? I also know, that he’ll blame me for a thousand wrongs. But that’s human nature. Boy–do I love this big kid more and more every day. It’s amazing to see him blossom into a young man, full of his own ideas, and to see him making his way in this amazing world of ours. Love you kiddo!

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Thinking Errors

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Blame Game

Every once in a while I start to question my ability as a writer. When this happens, I usually take a break from writing. Or I procrastinate. I put my writing on the backburner as if this will solve the confidence problem I have when it comes to my writing instead of just making my confidence plummet more.

This week, my husband went out of town. He works from home. As such, he also does the majority of making dinner and cleaning the house, and he picks up the kids from camp, etc. He is basically Mr. Mom. I’m not sure what I would do without him, because he LOVES doing that sort of stuff and I don’t. I was lucky, because my niece and nephew were in town so we went over to my parent’s house most nights. Taking care of the kids and making dinner became a collaborative effort. Single parents: I have the utmost respect for you. I could not do it.

But my tween seemed to be having a hard time this week. And he was blaming everyone else besides himself. This is common among kids, tweens, and teens. I was upset by my tween’s behavior. I went to the internet to search why he always deflected blame, and why when I addressed it the whole thing blew up into a huge fight between us, ultimately ending with me feeling guilty. And then I read this great article and realized: It’s a classic thinking error. I found out from reading this article, how to challenge thinking errors when dealing with my tween. His classic thinking error is in thinking the whole world is against him. He has painted himself as the victim, instead of the aggressor. He has done this over and over again, because he has limited problem solving skills, probably because his parents (aka me and his dad) have not modeled correct problem solving skills when faced with certain issues, or we’ve been inconsistent in addressing issues when he’s in the wrong. In his way of thinking, when he hits a kid or gets into a fight it’s the other kid’s fault because that kid was “bothering” him. I challenged him yesterday. And I think it hit home. I’m trying to change the dialogue between us so he can start growing up and realizing that making himself the victim is a thinking error and won’t help him in the long run.

And in thinking about this, I started thinking about my own thinking errors. I have no time to write. I’m not a good writer. If only, I didn’t have a full time job, three kids, and 5,000 activities. I’m laying the blame for my failure to write everywhere else besides in myself.  I’m not taking responsibility for the fact that I’m ceasing to create. I’m making excuses. I’m procrastinating, when in reality I have the ability to change the dialogue. I have the ability to tell myself I can write. And I know this, because I’ve done it before even when I was busy. I made the time. I stopped making excuses.

Overcoming thinking errors is hard, because thinking errors aren’t just mistakes. Thinking errors occur over and over again, because we’ve learned to use them as coping mechanism so we don’t have to face the reality of our actions or the intensity of our emotions. People use thinking errors to try to protect themselves from getting hurt. Thinking errors are justification to ourselves when we’re doing something wrong. They serve a purpose of trying to keep our self esteem intact when our self esteem is plummeting. When we don’t take the blame, we perceive an injustice to us that’s not there. When we procrastinate, we tell ourselves that everything else is more important than what we’re meant to be working on. These are all ways to protect our ego and to protect our identity as we see it. But the problem with thinking errors is that they’re destructive. Do we really want to go through life feeling like we’re a victim of our circumstances? Do we want to make excuses or procrastinate until the opportunity doesn’t exist or we feel so hopeless about our own destiny that we throw up our hands and we cease to create, cease to strive for better? I don’t want to be that person.

I’m rewiring my thinking error about writing today. I’m telling myself that I do have time to write. I have time to blog, even if it is 5 words a day. I’m going to stop using procrastination as an excuse not to face my fears where writing is concerned. I’m going to do what I’m called to do even if I suck at it (which I don’t think I do). When we overcome thinking errors, we become more emotionally aware. We also become more capable of being happy, self-confident, and achieving success.

Do you have a thinking error that’s holding you back from achieving success, establishing friendships, or facing your own demons?

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Parenting and Expectations

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DSC_0172

Kids. Guilt. Expectations. They go together like three peas in a pod. I probably read every article I come across about parenting. Some serve to judge. Some serve not to judge. Some ask people not to judge while they are then judging other people. Judgment is just human nature. Taking all the information in, processing it, and then finding what works for me as a parent is what I normally attempt to do. It isn’t a fine science.

A few years ago, I found I felt angry a lot. I took it out on my husband and my kids. I yelled and I snapped. I snipped at people. And it only made me feel worse. It took me a while, but I found a way to control that anger, especially when I realized it made my kids act like me. They took on all my anxiety and anger, and they began to express it. They expressed it in their play and in the way they interacted with other people. And that was not something I wanted, because I knew it was one of my major flaws. It prohibited me from appropriately relating to other people. It caused a cease of communication, when all I really wanted was to communicate.

I still have a temper. Sometimes I get so mad I could hit something. Instead, I write. Or do yoga. Or I go for a walk. Or I take a hot bath. I try to push a pause button until I feel better.

I thought taking the anger away was enough. I wanted my children to avoid feeling like they had to please me and their father above themselves. You see, for a long time I felt that way. My parents had HUGE expectations of me, and everything I had striven for in my early adulthood I did for them instead of for myself. I couldn’t figure out why it was so important for me to make them happy. And that feeling made me unhappy. Trying to please others above yourself always makes one feel unhappy, because you never know if you’re succeeding at it and because you’ve placed your happiness in the hands of another person who you have no control over. I felt like I had to be a superhero to avoid my dad’s criticism or to mold myself into their idea of success. And I don’t want that for my children. I love my parents, and I don’t blame them at all. They’re good parents, and they’re there for me, and everyone should be as lucky as I am to have been born of such wonderful, loving people. I know my parents are proud of me. I know it’s my own life to live, and I know that they didn’t mean to heap their expectations on to me. Parents should expect a lot from their children, but children should also expect more from themselves. They should be taught that success is driven by achieving their expectations of themselves, not by reacting to others expectations of them.

I read this great article yesterday (from April 2014) titled What to Say Instead of Praising. Praising brings conditionality into a relationship. In fact, saying “Good job,” implies that you expect them to be good. Instead of “Good job,” say “You did it!” and match your child’s excitement. This is one of the hints from the article. This also allows your child to realize the value of what they did, without feeling like they have to do a good job to please you. Instead, they learn that working hard reaps benefits for themselves. It in fact, leads them to succeed without having the burden of having to please their parents.

I think I say, “Good job,” more than any other phrase to my kids. And this morning, I changed that. I sent Hailey to the car while I went to the bathroom. I said, “Hey, if you try to buckle up while I’m in the bathroom it’ll be a big help to me.” She beamed at me.

When I came back from the bathroom, she was in the car completely buckled with a huge grin on her face, “Look Mom!” And I had to bite my tongue. My first instinct was to say, “Good job!” but I didn’t. Instead I said, “Look. You did it!” and I grinned back at her and gave her a love pat.

Like consciously stopping my anger, this is something I’ll have to work on as well. But I think like the article stated it will increase my children’s self-esteem. It will show them they have the power within to succeed in the ways they want to succeed. Instead of trying to understand and live up to my expectations as adults, they’ll live up to their own expectations and create happiness from within. At least this is what I hope for them.

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It’s Payback, Really

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My kids fight. Liam and Hailey seem born of hatred for one another. Sometimes, they will play together so nicely. I look back fondly on the good ole days when Liam called Hailey, “Harry,” and thought she was the cutest thing ever. But we are past all that. I think it comes because they are two years apart and insanely jealous of each other. Liam is praised because he is calm, makes straight As, and is so laidback (except when he’s being left out—then he’s just mean). And Hailey is praised because she’s cute, sweet, and the only girl. They both vie for my attention and their father’s, and they hate when one gets it over the other. I know a lot of sibling rivalry stems from sensing things are unfair. I know this from experience.

This weekend, before I left to attend one of my book clubs, they were playing in my room so nicely. They both have great imaginations. They could play for hours together until the bickering begins. By the time I made it home for our afternoon grill out, the niceties had fallen by the wayside and they were picking on each other.

Liam: “Hailey you’re doing that wrong.”

Hailey: “LIAM! STOP TELLING ME WHAT TO DO!” on the top of her lungs. She has no other voice setting.

And then hands around neck, or light sabers to the stomach, until someone screams or is not-so-seriously injured. I think part of the problem is I tend to get involved. At some point, I should just let them duke it out and see who comes out the winner. Fight Club, anyone?

DSCN0653

Aren’t kids precious? Hailey has that eyeroll down pat–should I be worried?

But, I guess it’s fair. My sister and I had a horrible time getting along when we were growing up. I take a lot of that blame. I was mean. I remember once, my older sister, my brother and I started a sticker club and wouldn’t let Allison join. My dad banned us from trading stickers. Oh the horrors! But Alli and I duked it out the same way Liam and Hailey did. And for a long time I had an intense jealousy of her. She was so motivated. She always made good grades (yes, that happens when one studies), and she seemed to be the apple of Mom and Dad’s eyes. I felt like an afterthought. And even more so, I felt like my parents tended to side with her in our arguments and blame me, even into adulthood. Now, I see they were trying to protect her because she was the middle child, and because we did treat her horribly. All the adversity turned her into an amazing wonderful person, and I’m proud to say she’s my sister. I love her to death, and I feel closer to her now than I ever have. I hope my middling Liam can say the same about his little sister when he’s grown up.

In the meantime, I’ll just keep screaming, “Stop fighting, you two!”

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