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Not Fair

I have a bug. Not a bad one, but one that makes my head feel like it might split with even slight movement. So I’m in bed, and the boys are coping well without me.

Up to a point.

Will came to me in tears because Sam ate his peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Of course, will had told everyone who would listen that he hadn’t asked for peanut butter and jelly. Didn’t want peanut butter and jelly. Wasn’t, under any circumstances, going to eat peanut butter and jelly. But lo and behold, once it was no longer an option, it turns out he really, really wanted “just one bite” for his snack.

“Baby, it’s gone, and I’m sorry. But mommy ordered cheese pizza and it’ll be here soon.”

“I know,” he sniffed, ” but everybody else got a snack and I didn’t.”

“Here,” I said reaching for the 6-pack of peanut butter crackers I had planned for lunch, “you can snack on these until the pizza comes. Mommy’s going to have one so she doesn’t feel sick, and you can have 3. The rest you can save for snack later.”

Satisfied, he marched off to the kitchen and I didn’t think anything else of it until…

“Mommy, it’s not fair,” Will said, as he climbed up on my bed. His previous tears were still fresh in evidence as dried streaks down his cheeks.

Now, as a mom of 4 boys, I hear “It’s not fair!” more than a few times each day. So, I braced myself for a lengthy recount of some brotherly injustice.

“It’s not fair that I got 3 crackers and you only got 1, mom,” he continues, handing me the cracker package twisted shut around the 2remaining crackers. “So you have these 2.”

Maybe it’s because I’m sick and emotional, but I hugged him to me and tearfully blabbered quite a bit about what a wonderful boy he was and how kind he was without being told.

No sooner had Will bounced away grinning when Jack strode in to inform me that he’d emptied the dishwasher and was about to move the wet clothes into the dryer.

I felt the tears well again as I realized life really isn’t fair. Sometimes unworthy people like me get a cup filled with grace, heaped up and running over. But I’m so thankful.

 

Posted in Family & Relationships, Kids.


2 Responses

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  1. anna says

    aw, what fab boys. you’re obviously doing an amazing job with them. rest well and wishing you a speedy recovery.

  2. Janie Vianey says

    So sorry you are sick, but how sweet….I love you can see the good when feeling so bad!



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