A Sea, A Sea, My Kingdom for a Sea....

My husband's day off is Tuesday. Which means that every Tuesday, without fail, I overschedule myself to try and fit in all the things I need to do that week in one day so I can take advantage of the free babysitting. This week I came home from hours of I don't even know what to find a sea of blue striped wrapping paper in the living room. I'm talking a whole roll of Costco wrapping paper. I walked up to my husband with an incredulous look on my face. "What on earth is this huge mess?" I gaped. "Oh, we had a great time while you were gone," he smiled. Obviously.

Moms look at things differently than Dads. What is to a Mom a huge mess or accident waiting to happen is Dad's opportunity for fun and memories. What to a Mom is an chance to teach responsibility for yourself by cleaning up your huge mess is to a Dad something to leave around for the rest of the day in case you want to play with it again. This is the beauty of family. We balance each other out. And not just the parents. Siblings do it, too.

For example, Sam is pretty much a one track minded kid, and I mean that literally. He loves trains. He loves building miles of tracks and will play by himself for hours if you let him. Maggie loves people, so she is always asking Sam to play with her and getting him to laugh with her and hug her. He, in turn, has taught her to appreciate the finer points of Thomas the Tank Engine.

My oldest daughter is sloppy and messy, and my second oldest is neat and tidy. Oldest doesn't care what people think about her and younger is so sensitive she rarely makes it through the school day without tearing up. The other day, oldest decided to write youngest a letter, telling her about all the things oldest thought were totally awesome about youngest. The change in youngest has been palpable. Abby didn't think twice about telling Emma she was smart and insightful and clean and loving because she doesn't care what Emma thinks about her. Emma will always treasure these words from her big sister because she does care what Abby thinks about her. It's the perfect marriage of personality.

Sometimes we fight in our family. It's bound to happen. Seven different personalities under one roof? I call that MTV's Real World. People pay good money to watch that on TV. But when we are fighting, I try to remember this sea of paper and remember that we all are helping each other in ways we don't recognize because we are different. The love and fond memories that come from destroying a whole huge roll of wrapping paper are important ones. As well as the lesson learned by cleaning up when Mom comes home.