This won’t be the first time you hear me say it, but you may read more into it than I would. Raising four girls is hard. I don’t mean the day to day stuff. That is great. I love it. I don’t even mean the laundry (but that is completely oppressive). What I mean is the whining. It can really get to you. I have two ladies that wake up cranky as all get out. And two that wake up, albeit slowly, smiling and happy. Here is how the breakdown goes:
There is the Brendan team: A and R. All three wake up crying (Brendan a little less these days). They want to be grumpy for about an hour while they shake the sleep out of their eyes. Then there is my team. As soon as J opens her eyes, she is smiling. I have never seen anything like it. I don’t look her in the eyes sometimes because I know if she sees my eyes, she will smile and be wide awake, ready for the day. This is not a good feature at 3am. Anyway, B and I are also in the happy AM crew. B and I would prefer to lay around for a while, think about getting up, but once our feet hit the floor, we are ready to go.*
Anyway, this was a particularly tough morning. I was trying to leave. We were rushing B through the AM routine and A was whining. R was crying. They both wanted to sit in a chair with papa. Just hugging and rocking for an hour while they got ready to face the day. The whining was really driving us nuts. I asked A to stop. I tried to sort out her problems. I had exactly 3 minutes to get panties on B and get her down the steps with her backpack. A- still whining. Finally, B asked papa why he was agitated. He explained: “Because A is being a twit.” Then he turned to A and said “stop being a twit.”
Enter the most difficult thing about raising girls (and maybe boys?). She went mid-whine to sobs. Full out HUGE tears, sobs. And she said: “Papa doesn’t love me anymore.” CRUSH. This is how fragile their understanding of self is. Brendan is the most loving person I know. He tells each of us every single day “you know how much I love you right?” and passes kisses to everyone. One moment, one break of calling it like it is. Remember, A was crying over everything that morning. She was setting the mood for the day, and it wasn’t a good one. But in that moment, all she could feel was: “papa doesn’t love me anymore.”
I suspect we have 20 more years of moments like this in our future. Moments when the girls will second guess themselves; when they will worry if the world even cares. We all did, right? All Brendan and I can hope to do is remind them each and every day that we love them just the way they are. We may not love their actions, but they, at their core are four of the most amazing people I have ever met. I love their curiosity, sense of adventure, and outlook on the world. And if there is one thing I hope they know down to the fiber of their beings is that Mama and Papa love you very much. Now stop whining.
*Brendan will tell this story differently, explaining that he is lovely in the AM. I find that interesting.
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