Wednesday, October 12, 2005

Sibling love...

Emma (3) and Nathaniel(5) are the best of friends and the worst of enemies. Emma knows just what buttons to push and how to torture Nathaniel to get a rise out of him. On occasion, though, it is Nathaniel who is at fault.

Yesterday was one of those days. He went rushing by Emma and pushed her as he went by making her bump her head. The tears that gushed were more from hurt feelings than pain and before she could spit out her standard pay back; "I not your fwend any more Tanny Paul!" one of the kids spoke up:

"Nathaniel! You hurt your little sister! You need to fix that!"

Emma immeadiatly crumpled onto the bottom step, face away from Nathaniel. Smothering a smile I added:
"Yes, Nathaniel you need to say sorry, and give her a hug. "

He leaned over her, and tried to kiss her head.
"Torry Emma!"
She wanted none of it. She preferred to remain the injured party. Not to be thwarted, Nathaniel wrapped his arms around her neck to hug her. Emma growled and tried to push him away, catching him off balence. Still clutching her neck Nathaniel fell backwards. Refusing to let go, he wrestled with Emma until he had he gotten a solid hug in.

Satisfied that he had fulfilled his duty, he stood up and walked away leaving her on the ground. Emma laid there for a minute until apparently she decided it was fruitless to pursue the "arguement" any further, and got up and went her way.

Sibling love - ain't it grand?

2 comments:

Lorcan said...

This wonderful story calls to mind, two weekends ago, I was visiting a Bucks County meeting to be a visiting First Day School teacher (Sunday School - though it was Saturday to be precise!) One of the children had ADHD, with a huge emphasis on the H. Lovely little fellow. He was bouncing about as we spoke about this and that. At one point he bounced right on a little girl and hit her in the head. I paused and asked if he had to say anything, and he assured me he was alright. The other kids suggested to him that he might want to say he was sorry to the little girl on whom he landed. She very nicely accepted his appology. Well, this led to the group discussing violence and it was noted that ruff and tumble in sports is not truely violence... The adult group was running quite late and the kids were being so good, I took them out to the play yard. The little fellow with the impulse challenges picked up a frisbee and flung it at the little girl, who was now on the swings, hitting her on the head with it. "It is alright," he announced, "it was while playing!"
Well, even the wee girl laughed, and then we told him very serriously that BOTH folks had to be playing and playing the same game!
All the best
lor

Anonymous said...

This is a test run of some new message settings I have made so it is just me...
Mum2twelve... writing to herself!
:-)