Girls, Girls, Girls...

For the past several weeks it has been building. A symphony of melodramatics of sorts. With every day that passes the orchestra of emotions have gradually crescendo'ed louder and louder. Turning a blind eye; letting the instrumentalists learn to harmonize on their own; sighing at the dissonance that daily rings in my ears....none have proven successful. The orchestra of heightened emotions plays on. I was told raising girls would bear this kind of fruit.

I should have been prepared. I do have sisters myself, after all. Perhaps I was lingering on the prayer that mine would be immune. Or hanging on to the memories of them playing together so well when they were toddlers. Now I recall how my elder sister and I failed miserably to live in harmony. "Not MY girls." Somehow I'd believed they were different from us. Different home life, different upbringing, different parenting styles. Turns out when it comes to estrogen and female instincts; those differences mean nothing. Girly hormones trump all. I've come to the conclusion....all females were created equal. Sure, to varying degrees...but they are basically all the same. It must be our God-given instincts to ward off all other females in the pack. Some sort of predatory or protective tactics for self-preservation. Either way....my girls are not immune.

(Brief moment of silence for the innocence lost in little girls across the world whom are transitioning from little girl to young lady.)

Oh, how I remember those days. My older sister was perfect in every way (or so it seemed looking up from where I stood). She had the beautiful, dark skin (mine was and is still pasty white...although now I prefer to refer to it as "ivory"); the little petite girly figure (I was always curvier); and the best sky-scraper bangs one could every hope to have (it was the style, after all). Even her friends were cool. School came much easier for her...she made it seem effortless. She knew what to say, how to act. She was as sleek as a cougar at lying and getting away with things (something I admired and strived to be like back then...she just made it look good.) I was good at filling mom in on all the juicy details of her rebelliousness. (But only when absolutely necessary....when it worked in my favor.) She could just look at me cross-eyed and bring me to instantaneous tears of frustration. She was simply....everything I was NOT. Of course I didn't understand in childhood what I understand now. That being different is okay...good, even. And judging from the comments I hear from my own girls, history has a way of repeating itself. Always looking to someone else and becoming self-aware of where we lack ourselves. Yet lashing out at the very one we admire. I believe it's called "jealousy". It seems like an awful way to compliment someone, if you ask me. But we are all human, after all.

How do we cope in the emotional symphony of chaos with three, you ask? Well, one cat spat at a time, of course. Some days are serenely quiet and peaceful. But other days....well, then there's other days.We have times where we want to drown out the dissonant music in our home by turning a blind eye (my coping mechanism of choice). But when we work, I mean really work, at harmonizing the family the result is often the satisfaction of a beautiful melody. Damaged relationships find mending. Hurt feelings find understanding. Wrong-doings result in consequences. And if even for just one day...there's peace yet again in the home. Until the next escalation, of course.

I truly do adore raising girls. Perhaps because I just GET THEM. (I am, after all, one of them.) The things they struggle with, I struggle with as well. Just not necessarily on the same level. The good, the bad and the ugly. It's all part of the territory. Even when the melodramatic days leave me sighing...