Mean Girls

No, not the Lindsay Lohan move. I wish. Then I could laugh about it…

I have two mean girls living in my very own house. Their names are Zianne and Talitha, and they are my daughters.

We are nearly a year into this parenting-two-children gig and many days it feels like our girls haven’t bonded at all. I hear other moms talk about how sweet it is to watch their kids become best friends, how their older child protects and nurtures the younger, and I cannot even fathom those images in my mind.

In our house, we have hitting, kicking, pushing, choke holds, and the occasional toy launched at another’s head. Typically, Zianne is being aggressive toward her baby sister, working out some lingering anxiety toward this human that usurped her from the only-child throne. But to give Talitha some credit, she knows how to fight back. She’s not even 11 months old, yet she can wrestle with the best of ’em.

It’s gotten to the point where Micah gets home from work, hugs Zianne, then scoops Talitha up and takes her upstairs with him while he changes out of his work clothes, all so I can get dinner on the table without the interruption of a trip to the ER. Micah and I talk about the issue soberly at night after the girls are in bed. “We can’t even leave them in the same room together for two minutes…”

My sister and I were extremely close growing up. We rarely fought {at least in comparison to other childhood stories I’ve heard from friends} and we are still the best of friends to this day. My hope is that Zianne and Talitha will have a similar relationship.

Right now that feels nearly impossible…

But then God gave me a dose of hope in an Instagram photo. A fellow blogger friend posted a picture of her two sons jumping on a trampoline, exclaiming that, FINALLY, they are becoming the best of friends. For her family, it took 18 long months. Other moms shared their stories in the comments, about how it also took a year or two for their children to become friends or how they are still praying their way through the “mean” stage. The dialogue lifted my spirits a bit. My children are not the only ones who are mean. I am not the only mom waiting for the friend stage to start. Thank you, Lord, for a bit of grace in my Instagram feed.

Until the long-awaited friendship begins, I will celebrate the little moments where my mean girls seem to have a bond. They started sharing a room a few months ago, and they are both still in cribs, across the room from each other. When they wake up in the morning they usually stand and laugh and bounce together until I come in to get them. This fully-caged, can’t-touch-each other playtime is a beautiful glimmer of hope that my mean girls are actually best friends in the making…