Moms and girlies

My sweet daughter and I have been really bonding lately over quilting class.  She comes with me every week and we work on it together during the week.  One of us always has the sewing machine out, working on our quilt.  Sun, currently, is just making quilting squares.  She does not have a larger picture in mind and she just keeps adding to her pile.

Me, on the other hand, I have been trying to finish the project before seminary starts in two weeks.  I will have the quilt top done this week and then I have to figure out what I am using for the backing, choose batting, then quilt them together and bind it up.  That, realistically, will not happen completely before seminary starts.  That is just the reality of the situation.  But I am trying to pump it out, nonetheless.

I love the time we spend together.  It is usually over our quilting projects that Sun starts to share some of her more private thoughts.  She is worried about attending high school.  It is big and scary.  She is worried about the workload and if she can keep up with its demands.  Will she have any friends?  What if people don't like her?  She is having some drama with her current best friend and we talk about that too.

Last Sunday she came home and stormed off to her room, threw some things down and disappeared.

 I went and found her, turned her around without any words, and she just started sobbing.  Poor girlie.  Spike was with me and he said, "Mom, what's the matter with her?"  I just told him that she was sad and I didn't know what was wrong with her.  But we can just love her and hold her and when she is ready she will tell us what is wrong.  So that is what we did.

She was sad off and on the entire week.

At one point, about 2 in the afternoon sometime last week, she was super grouchy and snappy at everyone.  As the boys called her on her nastiness, it got worse and more biting.  She was trying to quilt.  Finally I asked her if she had eaten anything.  She hadn't.  So I made her get up from quilting and come and sit by me.  She gave me the death glare and I asked her if the drama with her bff was still bothering her.  She just started sobbing again.  The boys tried to help her out and make her laugh.  All of their efforts were not conducive to what she needed.  I told them to leave her alone and just let her cry.  She cried for about 20 minutes.  Then she talked just a little bit.  I told her to go and eat some food so she would feel better.  She finally did.

Then she said, "Hey Mom, you were right."

'About what?'

"I cried and I ate and now I feel fine."

Yep.  Too True.  Low blood sugar mixed with sad and hurt emotions makes for a nasty sister.  She apologized to her brothers---many of them.

Over the week we discussed how to handle her drama.  Today when she gets home we will see how it went and if she was able to apply the things we discussed.  Because drama is drama right?  It doesn't really matter if we are four, fourteen, or forty--or more.  The same principles apply.

1.  Be kind.
2.  Think about the other person
3.  Pray for help about how to handle the situation and approach the others involved.
4.  Review what happened and what you know. Is it possible you have said or done something offensive that you did not recognize?  If you know what went wrong, could you have handled it differently?  Should you have taken other things into account?
5.  Pray to know when and where to ask clarifying questions and apologize---even if you didn't do anything wrong, sometimes apologizing for the person's feelings being hurt will help to open the way to communications.
6.  Recognize that you cannot control other people and/or their feelings.  You may be in a place to rectify the situation.  They may not.
7.  Be willing to accept how the other person feels about it and be prepared if they do not wish to rectify the situation or the relationship.
8.  Pray for personal healing whatever happens and pray for the other person's heart to heal also.

There are probably others, but this will get you started :-)

PS  She got home.  She tried.  There is still unresolved drama! (Sad face :-(