As I See It
Louise Hoffman Broach, Wayuga Editor
Tuesday, June 23 2009
Shoeless in Savannah
With just two days left of the school year, one of my daughters rang my cell phone Friday.
“Mom, I have to tell you something,” she said. “They made me call you. I’m in the office because I threw my sister’s shoe on the roof.”
Knowing my daughters’ relationship with each other, my first inclination was to laugh – but somehow, I don’t think that’s why the school wanted her to call me. I actually had the secretary haul the other daughter into the office too, so I could yell at both of them about their playground battle, mostly for appearances sake.
I promised my daughters I wouldn’t say who was the shoe wearer or the shoe thrower – it really doesn’t matter because it could have gone either way, there was no innocent victim here. I guess the only saving grace was that it wasn’t someone else’ shoe that ended up on the roof, that it was kept in the family.
My girls are now 11 and 12 – the best of friends and the worst of enemies.
I remember getting really exasperated with them when they were 4 and 5. We were in the car and they were sitting in the back, strapped into side-by-side car seats, bickering over something stupid in an extended argument that was getting louder and louder.
“Why do sisters fight?” I wailed, willing them to just be quiet for five minutes.
“No one knows!” Katy responded, equally as exasperated.
Maybe her kindergarten insight was correct, maybe no one does know. I certainly don’t. I’m an only child, so all of this is really foreign to me. It took me years to learn what normal sibling bickering is, and I still don’t get it right most of the time.
After shouting, running through the house and flinging things at each other, I will intervene with them, but I get “Mom, we’re not fighting, we’re joking around,” usually accompanied by an eye roll. Rayne, my younger daughter, is getting great at eye rolls.
They will have a major fight about whose turn it is to feed the animals, do the laundry or unload the dishwasher, to the point of shrieking and tears. They haven’t figured out how to sit on a couch together without hitting or pushing each other. Deciding what to watch on television is also cause for a major battle
Yet, one will rarely jump on the trampoline without the other, or swim in a pool, or go for a bike ride. When they are out somewhere without us, a school or Girl Scout function, for example, they are keen on keeping track of each other’s whereabouts. They practiced playing softball together, which made Rayne a pretty decent catcher and Katy a great pitcher.
And today they spent hours playing the game of Risk, and it wasn’t even raining out. They laughed more than they fought.
So, I can’t get excited about shoes on roofs; but I did give the girls some advice: keep their battling at home, so they won’t have to apologize to the janitor.
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