Continued from here ...

Beth joined me in the rocking chair after having spent some “quality time” sharing deep and emotional secrets with Dora while they were sweeping rocks off the driveway and pulling weeds from the mulched areas around the house. Dora was missing her mom, and as Dora’s emotions uncorked, Beth’s own barely contained emotions exploded as well. Beth was already dealing with her choice to pilfer candy and the impact that had upon me, and therefore her. Consequently, she had little reserve and little ability to have much control over what escaped from her mouth.


Dora shared with Beth some of Dora’s innermost thoughts about what had transpired in her life these past few weeks. These are thoughts I suspected she harbored, but not ones she had shared with me. Beth relayed them on to me, not for the reason of snitching on Dora, but because those thoughts so deeply affected Beth. Part of that discussion included talking about their respective disruptions and how Dora was older than Beth, therefore felt she was more impacted than Beth. Although Dora does not know how this will play out, she is very attached to her mom and is not at this moment amenable to the idea of becoming a Spoolstra. This is not a problem for me, because we all need time to catch our breaths and see how this unfolds. The last thing I would do right now is force Dora to commit to a "mom" she barely knows. But of course, Dora’s statement that she doesn’t want to be a Spoolstra had an impact on Beth.


There were other aspects to this discussion that, once again, I will not share. Suffice it to say, however, that whereas I initially was not happy with Beth when I first heard from Dora what they discussed, I ended up being incredibly impressed with Beth’s handling of the whole situation. I talked to both girls about this not being a competition over “who was wounded the most” but rather, they should understand that each child had pain and they should respect and validate that pain, not magnify it. Beth asked me repeatedly if I was angry with her. I repeatedly told her I was not. I assured her I thought she handled the conversation well and that she had every right to have an emotional response to what they discussed.


Dora had a rough day today, stalling out on schoolwork. It is very hard to concentrate on math when one is feeling abandoned. We spent a great deal of time in the rocking chair.


Tonight was Beth’s first swim practice, so I fed the girls early, dropped Beth at swimming, rocked Dora, spent 90 minutes on an ATN conference call, rocked Beth after my husband retrieved her from swimming, and then sat down to write a blog. In between there, I was fighting with Norton Internet Security that has decided to quit working on my laptop. Uninstalling and reinstalling twice didn’t work. If it isn’t one thing it is another …


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