You Gotta Fight For Your Right (To Four Square)

One afternoon this week, Lucy walked towards me across the lawn at school without smiling. Reaching me, she hugged me tightly without a word. She held on longer than usual and when I pulled back to look at her face, I could see a hint of a tear in her eye. “Bad day?” I asked. She nodded and we walked home in silence.

She wasn’t ready to talk until bedtime, but true to form, when she was ready to talk, she had a lot to say. She regaled me with every excruciating detail of a playground four-square power struggle: “She said I cherry-bombed her, but I didn't, I just went like this, and even the judge said I didn’t cherry-bomb her but she wouldn’t stop fighting about it, and then she got her sister to say I did it, and then she got the Playground Lady and the Playground Lady believed me but she still wouldn't stop fighting…” She paused for a breath and I took that opportunity to ask what I thought to be the most obvious question, “Lucy…did it occur to you at any point that you could stop fighting?” She stared at me incredulously, told me I obviously hadn’t understood the story at all and began telling it again.  From the beginning.

When she was finally done, we brainstormed ideas of how she could handle things differently next time (and by that I mean I suggested several viable, perfectly-reasonable, arguably-brilliant options and she told me repeatedly that I didn’t know what I was talking about.) Until I saw the tiniest hint of an “aha” moment in her eyes when I suggested she consider the other combatant’s motivation. Was her motivation to beat you? To be mean to you? To simply be right? Or was it possible that the other combatant was convinced that Lucy had actually broken the rules. Was it at least conceivable that the other girl believed she was every bit as right as Lucy believed herself to be?

And as quickly as it came, that glimmer of understanding was gone. “But mom! I’m pretty much always right!” Lucy said with a completely straight face. And that’s when I burst out laughing.
Right out loud – I couldn't help it. Again she looked at me incredulously. “What?  I AM!”

“Oh Lucy, honey. I know you think you are, but that couldn't possibly be true. I'm sure your four-square opponent thinks she's right. She might even think she's 'pretty much always right,' just like you do. But no one is always right. It's just not possible that every person who believes she's right actually is right…is it?" (I can't remember my rant verbatim and it's possible I didn't do it justice here. I just know that by the end, I had repeated the word "right" so many times it ceased to sound like a real word to my ear.) When I was done, Lucy sucked in some air, raised her index finger and opened her mouth to speak. But knowing without a doubt she was not opening her mouth to agree with me, I put my hand up and made a quick, sharp closing gesture with it as if I had just slammed shut the mouth of a sock puppet. Having seen that gesture many times before, she exhaled, but wisely kept her mouth shut.

Crossing her arms over her chest, Lucy glared at me and I knew she knew I had a point. But it was getting late (and I've learned when not to push it with Lu) so I said, "Let’s think about that tonight and talk some more tomorrow.” She turned on her heel and stormed off to her room in a spectacular huff. But that “aha” moment had been there – I’d seen it, if only for a moment. That glimmer of understanding that maybe, just maybe, there was another way to look at the situation.

Parenting is not a one-way street and I’m convinced I have just as much to learn from my kids as they have to learn from me – if not more. Lucy could certainly teach me a thing or two about strength, resolve and self-confidence.  But maybe she has something to learn from me about humility, compromise, the courageousness of admitting you’re wrong and the restorative power of offering a heart-felt apology.

So many things to learn from each other – here’s a recap from just one Thursday night in October:

·         Cherry-bombs are not allowed in Meridian Park Elementary’s standard rules of four-square

·         What constitutes a cherry-bomb is subjective and therefore open to debate (lots of debate)

·         The Playground Lady is not necessarily the final word in a dispute among third-grade girls (ever tried to get in the last word with a third-grade girl?)

·         Strength, resolve and self-confidence are all very good traits

·         Humility, compromise, admitting you’re wrong and offering an apology when it’s warranted are challenging for even the most enlightened adults, let alone a third-grader

·         Sometimes, when all else fails, you just might have to fight for your right to four square

I can’t want to see what we’ll learn from each other next week.

The Magic Returns

It seems as though the fairies in our garden have been a little short on magic lately. I don’t know why, but they just haven’t been around much. And I know it may seem weird, but I think my own magic tends to go the way of the fairies’. Not much magic from the fairies? Probably not much magic from me either – perhaps evidenced by the time elapsed since I last posted here.

Lucy and Hope left notes in the garden for the fairies some time ago and those notes sat uncollected for quite a while. In fact, they sat there so long I became curious. So I read those wrinkled, smudged, rain-soaked notes. Apparently, the girls wanted to meet the fairies face-to-face. Now everyone knows you can’t actually see a fairy without that fairy losing her magic, but that didn’t stop the girls from asking. It seems they were seeking a little proof of the magic in our garden.

A few days after reading the girls’ notes, I noticed they were gone – taken by the fairies, no doubt, so they could consider the girls’ request. I waited to see what would happen next.

Today was a rare, gloriously-sunny, warm October day and I sent the girls outside to play after they’d finished their homework. Who could have guessed that today would be the day that magic would return to our garden? I’m so glad we didn’t miss it.

Near the front door to the girls’ Fairy Compound, spelled out in Scrabble cubes was this message: “Magic lives inside you too. Look closely.” And on each of the decorative stones that are the Fairy Apartments – just where the girls had left their notes – sat a lovely, little mirror.



Lucy and Hope were thrilled and a lively debate ensued about the meaning of the cryptic message. Lucy was convinced they would see magic if they looked in the mirrors, “I don’t see anything. Wait…right there…I see sparkles!” (Then Hope broke the news that she probably wasn’t seeing magic as much as she was seeing some glitter stuck to her cheek.) After further discussion they arrived at the conclusion that the message meant they should look closely at everything – that there was magic everywhere if you just looked closely enough. (Have I ever mentioned how truly brilliant they are?)

Later, when I shared these events with Troy, he said he couldn’t wait to be a part of our everyday life and share in the magic with the kids. He went on to say that he hoped the magic wouldn’t run out before he gets here.

These kids will stop believing in fairies and elves one day (probably sooner than I’d like), but the magic will most certainly not run out. The magic will exist in a catch no one thought possible on a softball field, in being asked to sit with the cool kids at lunch, in watching E.T. together for the first time and in sharing our favorite books.   The magic will exist in gazing at the stars, swinging so high the chains go slack, daring to dream and having the courage to love with all our hearts. The Heaglers have magic that will never run out – we all do. The magic lives inside us.

So who knows, maybe now that the fairies have returned magic to our garden, I might start to feel a little more magical myself. Just maybe I’ll see the magic in me…if I look closely. (And don't get fooled by an errant piece of glitter stuck to my cheek.)