Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Saying Sorry

It was one of those moments.

Me: Ems, here are two vitamins.  Please give Andrew one.

Emily: Ok.  (Walks over to her brother.) Here you go, Andrew.

Five minutes later.

Andrew: Misse! [Mine] (Pointing at the vitamin Emily is eating.)

Me: Ben, did you see Emily give Andrew a vitamin?

Ben: No. I think she's eating his right now.

Ben:  Emily, come here. Did you eat Andrew's vitamin?

Emily: No.

Ben: Please don't lie, did you eat it?  We saw you put it in your mouth.

Emily: No! (Begins crying.  Runs to me for comfort.  I try to send her back to her dad.)

Ben: Oh no.  (Picks up a gummy vitamin from off the coffee table.)  She did give him one.

Our eyes meet.  We have falsely accused our sweet, little girl and not believed her when she told the truth.

Ben: Oh sweetie, come here.  I am so very sorry.

After several minutes of cuddling her, she pulls away.

Emily: It's okay daddy.

We, as parents, are fallible.  It's a hard lesson for Ben, me, and our kids to learn.  However, we have learned to say sorry.  Thankfully.

 



3 comments:

  1. Aww, you and Ben are great parents. It's important to remember that we're not perfect.. and well, saying sorry always goes a long way. It's always meant a lot to me when my parents apologize for their actions.

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  2. I've had my share of having to say I'm sorry to my kids. Last time was the worst. My 7yo was asked to clear his cereal bowl off the table. It still had a bit of milk and cereal in it. That day, instead of dumping it into the sink like he does every other day, he poured it out into an overly full garbage causing milk and soggy cereal to splatter everywhere. I was exasperated (why? I have no idea) and I raised my voice and said "Why did you do that?!" He smiled a little and then saw how angry I was about it and started to cry. It was then that I realized my reaction was an overreaction and I simply came down too hard. I was ridiculous. Oh the guilt. I felt like crap and apologized to no end. I just feel that moments like that stick with a kid, you know? No matter how hard you try to apologize - they just stick.

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  3. The hardest thing about saying sorry for me is not following it up with an explanation. I'm sorry, but... I'm sorry, it's just that.... I'm sorry.
    Anything after sorry just dissolves the meaning.

    Well done Ben.

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