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Monday, November 8, 2010

Play: Share and share alike

Last weekend, I took the girls out for doughnuts before we went to watch my husband play soccer.  As usual they ordered different flavors and then coveted each others', while each jealously guarded her own.  They traded stingy "bites" pinched off between fingernails and then, just after Big E had popped the last of her chocolate frosted into her mouth, Little E requested one last bite.

Big E told her that it was gone but offered her what was left in her mouth, which Little E happily accepted...and enjoyed.  I was disgusted, mortified and, I must admit, touched.

The previous weekend I had focused on giving each girl solo time, and while I enjoyed it, I also chastised myself a fair amount for not doing it frequently enough and then fretted over any irreversible long term damage I had caused them by treating them so often as a package deal.  And yet, here they were willing to cheerfully (and hopefully unnoticed by any other Dunkin' Donuts patrons) share breakfast pastry and saliva.  I chose to see this in the happiest possible light: they really do love each other, so I must have done something right.

This is something that I've actually been noticing a lot recently.  The day before the doughnut incident, I listened to Little E wake up Big E at the crack of dawn by chanting her name over and over and shouting (albeit a bit prematurely), "Wake up, wake up, it's Halloween! Wake up!  Wake up! I need you!"  They sing along together to Phantom Planet as we drive down the highway.  They entertain each other at soccer games with complicated games of pretend.  They have always been sisters, but, to my delight, they are also friends.

I hope that this continues, that even as they get older and busier and collect more friends from outside of the family that they will still be each others' companions.  I hope that they can always play as well together as they do now, that as they grow older they will be for each other the unconditional, truly forever best friend I always imaged a sister would be.

And now that I've come to this heartwarming realization, I hope that I never see Little E eat someone else's pre-masticated food ever again. 

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