Love is Hard

It has been almost a year exactly since I last posted on my blog. It's not to say that I haven't thought of things to write and share with you, I just haven't taken the time to write them down. 
The girls are now 3 and 4 and still full of P&V and all things fiery (hence the hair). I am on my last week of summer with them and we have had our ups and downs.

New to this summer has been sibling fighting that could put WWF to shame. What does one do when both of her children are crying/screaming, tackling, hair-pulling, kicking each other until they are just one big ball of flailing arms and legs? They both end up hurt and neither of them is sorry. You stick them in time out and they shout threats at each other for the whole 3 minutes that they have to sit in the chair. They are like tiny sociopaths.

About mid-June I discovered gating both kids in their bedroom together "until they learn to love each other." Their first move after being removed from society is to drag all of the hangers out of the closet. They dress up in random crap -- socks/mittens/scarves/backwards pajamas. And then what feels like seconds after being escorted to their prison sentence, they crack the door and smile at me with their arms around each other (which could be easily mistaken for a head-lock). "WE LOVE EACH OTHER NOW!" They shout and I let them out until the next fight breaks out ten minutes later.

It was during one of these lockdowns that Neddy had some very honest and real comments to share...

I, of course, lost my cool and screamed, "GET IN THE BEDROOM UNTIL YOU LEARN HOW TO LOVE EACH OTHER!" as I not-so-gently shut the gate and door.

Both girls continued to scream at one another. Finally Neddy opened the door and placed her sock-covered hands on the gate and shouted, "WE DON'T WANT TO LOVE EACH OTHER! IT'S TOO HARD!"
(Kate then followed up with a dramatic, "Mom sure made a bad choice!"  *sob*)

As I breathed slowly and counted to a million, I started to think about Neddy's words. Oh, my little philosopher. You are so right! Love is hard!