Spilled Milk

My three children were gone last week at camp. Six days and five nights of a fractured family, agony (at times) for their mother.

I felt such relief, such happiness, such wholeness, when I picked them up on Friday!

My sweet, precious, loving children.

Well, at least for the moment... They've been home just three days, but already they're back to the typical bickering and vying for sibling dominance.

Case in point: Tonight, after I'd poured three glasses of milk at the counter, I told each one to take a glass and sit down at the table for dinner. The same drink was poured into three identical glasses, at what appeared {to my untrained adult eye} to be the same level. Evidently, one twin (we'll call her Twin A) had set her mind on a particular glass at the same moment that the other twin (B) laid her hand on it. Of course neither one would back down from this challenge.

And of course I could see what was coming. But I let it play out.

After some verbal sparring, they moved on to physical force. By this time, each twin had her hand on the glass and was determined to pick it up and take it to her seat. Surely it's no surprise to you, my astute reader, that the result was spilled milk!

All over the counter. All over the stool that was beneath it. All over the floor. {Why, oh why, does stuff like this happen on the day the house is cleaned?}

But I stayed planted in my seat at the kitchen table. This wasn't my fight, and it wasn't my mess to clean up. And one of the lessons I learned from having my kids away at camp all week is that they can do for themselves! They don't need mom to come clean up their messes and take care of life's difficult moments for them. We all needed reminding of that valuable lesson.

So, there they were, cleaning up that big mess while their brother and I sat at the table, ready to eat. I didn't offer to help, and they didn't ask. They knew that their fighting caused the spill. They knew it was their responsibility to clean it up.

Responsibility: it's such an important life lesson. So what's a little spilled milk?