Take a big big picture

Millie has sweets
She gave some to Ellie and Maia
She gave one to me and wanted to see it get small from sucking. I didn't know and when she came back in to see mine I told her it was finished. She went back in the other room and took one of the sweets she had given to Ellie previously in order to give it to me.

We felt Ellie should have understood that Millie was only wanting to make me happy and play a game with mummy and we surmised that Millie thought that since she had given Ellie a few, taking one wouldn't be a major problem especially since it was for mummy.

Ellie didn't. She completely freaked out at the injustice of Millie not asking for the sweet and she was so fixated on that part that we couldn't help her see why Millie had perhaps thought it was ok to take a sweet.

We explained to Millie that she should have asked Ellie.

No matter how we tried to explain it to Ellie she couldn't see past the initial injustice. Millie shouldn't have taken the sweet and that was that.

My hubby is a lawyer and he often says to his clients sometimes you need to see the bigger picture and that sometimes you need to look past your full legal rights.

A long time ago we discussed present giving.  The consensus on taking back a present because you've changed your mind was, that at that young age it was better for them to learn about compassion and make an allowance for the fact that the present giver is allowed to change their mind and that it's ok to. We felt that sometimes kids give things to their friends in the heat of the moment for the right reasons and regret it later. (They can also give things for wrong reasons, because they think thats how to gain affection. That's a different matter though!) 

Sometimes you need to see the good in people and not always think you are being wronged.

It also helps to see the bigger picture to help everyone to be happy (or at least fairly happy) with the overall outcome instead of one very happy winner and one very unhappy loser.

Sibling navigation is tricky.

And so it begins. Strike Two?

Ok. Friends. Analyse this :-

( be brutal. Ok no. Be whatever is two below on the scale of brutal!!!)

At mums. Been slowly building relationship back up since last mahasoove blowout in October. But in that 'not treading on toes way'.

Mum: "it's not Chanukah already is it?. We just did Ellie's birthday. "

*Sigh*

(We were talking about Maia's Chanukah present.)

Fuck me. I was a paragon. I said nothing. Except. Really I should have. Should I have? Is this my pattern? Do not say anything. Let is slide. Let it build. Pressure cooker. S.Trike threeee. Lose my cool. Have a fight. Grrrr for bit. Slowly make up. Ad infinitum.

Or am I psychologising again? Am I being over sensitive. Is there something wrong with me? Am I depressed?

" What's your problem" ?!!! (Once said to me as a greeting....erm. Hello to you too). I digress.

Actually her comment did not elicit the same reaction as it might have previously. Outrage. Indignation. Disgust. But should it have gone completely unnoticed, glossed over, like strike one? (Strike one is too heinous to divulge but...it was my birthday, I didn't hear it first hand and frankly I couldn't be arsed at the time. I had life to be getting on with)(I've not forgotten though!)

I'm certain I should have been NVC  in that situation but for the life of me I am unable to think that way around her. Think how she is thinking. Imagining where those thoughts are coming from. That simply because it was Ellie's birthday 12days ago (could seem like 4 to her because family party was 4 days ago) means "I am entitled to begrudge getting something for my other granddaughter for Chanukah".

Okay. Now I am getting angry. I'm going to stop thinking about it anymore!! Maybe I am psychologising too much.

I'm just glad Maia is a bit hard of hearing (due to cold) at the moment. What would she have heard?

'I'm not getting a Chanukah gift from grandma because it was Ellie's birthday the other day. ' ???

Now I know present giving should not be equated with love and worth and all tied up in that conditionality...but it's Chanukah. It's her granddaughter. Who doesn't love a present?

Not that she would EVER do it anyway, but why fucking say it?!

Shit. I said I wasn't going to talk about it again!!

Meltdowns : massive one in Morrisons. (Will tell that story)

Losing the plot: resounding NO!

Breastfeeding: getting out and about again. I've been missing my supermarket feeds whilst sitting on the toilet rolls in the toilet roll aisle. (The bigger the store, the comfier the seat!)