A Great New Habit

The other night while the girls were getting ready for bed, we were hanging out in Elaine's room (oh and a little blog preview: this is soon to be Elaine's room no more. We're hopefully transitioning her to Lucy's room this week, so henceforth it will be known as Lucy and Elaine's room. Then we're going to redo her room into a guestroom. There will be tales of wallpaper removal! Paint chips! Choices of bed linens! Before and after pictures! Oh, the blogging possibilities are endless....) As I said, we were hanging out in Elaine's room, and Lucy sat down in Elaine's Maisy chair.

"Get out of my chair," Elaine demanded.

Lucy walked out of the room without another word, in search of her nightly Tic-Tac.

[A note of explanation: Lucy sucks her thumb. She always has. I'm sure she did it in utero. The majority of infant pictures I have of her she has her thumb in her mouth. I've never made a big deal about it, until lately our dentist has been giving us dire warnings. Now we're working on breaking this habit, and I can put all the blame squarely in Dr. Sullivan's lap so I don't look like a mean mom. When we first started talking about it together she told me, "But Mom, I need something to suck on. Can I have a Lifesaver instead?" So we settled on a Tic-Tac because they're sugarless (aren't they?), and I'm not worried about her choking on them. The success rate has been dubious so far because she faithfully sucks on the Tic-Tac, then when I check on her later at night, she's fast asleep with her thumb planted firmly in her mouth.]

Anyway, after Elaine said that, I told her, "Elaine, that was very rude. Your sister shares all kinds of things with you. You need to apologize to her." When Lucy came back in the room, Elaine said (kind of casually), "Sorry, Luce." Lucy said sweetly, "I forgive you," and then gave her one of her precious Tic-Tacs.

She turned to me and said, "Mama, while I was in my room I heard God say to me, 'You really should forgive Elaine. And then you should show her mercy,' so I gave her one of my Tic-Tacs!"

I looked at that little girl with her huge brown eyes, standing there in her fuzzy pajamas dispensing forgiveness, mercy, and Tic-Tacs, and I just had to give her the biggest hug.

I love her so.