The First Move

Our granddaughter spent the night a couple of weeks ago, and at breakfast asked for a piece of cinnamon toast. As I was caught up in some other things, I asked my husband to do the creative honors. Bill indicated he'd never made it before, so I pointed him towards the bottle of cinnamon sugar and gave some directions. Seemed pretty easy and straightforward to me.

Until I saw the finished product.

Now, from Izzy's point of the view, the toast was a-okay, because she was happily eating it. And from Bill's point of view, he had done an a-okay job on his first attempt. But from Ellen's point of view, no way, Jose. It was WRONG. Why?

Because there did not seem to be a speck of cinnamon sugar in sight. And as "everyone" knows, the perfect piece of cinnamon toast has a nice, thick layer of cinnamon sugar melting into the butter below!

So up came my ready made, built in defense/offense system.

"Bill, did you put cinnamon sugar on Izzy's toast?" "Uh-huh." My eyebrows raised. I could feel "the look" settling in place that is best friends with the thought "I should have just done this myself."

I launched into "helpful instructions for how to do it next time". I.e. MY WAY.

A voice popped up from the kitchen table, "You're fighting."

No, we're not, said Bill. Yes, you are, said Izzy. We're just discussing, said Bill. No, said Izzy, more insistently. You're lying; you're fighting. (Lying is an emerging topic with her these days, but that's a whole other lesson!)

The lightening bolt of understanding struck. I looked at Bill. "You know, from her perspective we ARE fighting. I am trying to make me right and you wrong. And that's a form of fighting."

It didn't matter that I was trying to cover the message in honey (or cinnamon sugar in this case!) by trying to be "helpful" with criticism of what was wrong with what he did, so it could be "right" in the future.

I was making him wrong. She could feel it. And in her world that meant we were fighting.

And when I stopped and listened carefully, I could hear the truth.