Step-family Talk

Today is a calm day. When I carry my son into the house, the TV is off and no sounds stir. I raise an eyebrow. My stepdaughter is supposed to be home, she’s grounded. My anxiety kicks it up a notch. If she disobeyed her mother their will be another war. My son squirms in my arms. He expects to be set loose in the house, but I need to check upstairs and I can’t set him down while the dog bowl is on his level.

So, I readjust my son and off we go up the stairs and down the hall. Her bedroom door is open and she is sleeping. I set my son on her bed to let him wake her up so she knows were home. She is deep in sleep, if reincarnation really exists then she was a mudskipper in a former life. My son knows what he is doing though and he makes straight for her hair. Delicately he sets a knee into her throat and grabs a handful of hair and pulls his body across her head—careful to set his other knee in her ear.

Having made a successful venture across the dangerous head of Mt. Sissy he turns around and laughs. She still has not woken, but she does stir. My son is excited at the motion and slaps her forehead repeatedly in his exuberance. At this she does wake and briefly scowls, then sees it is her brother and from the deep and craggy depths of sleep comes a genuine smile. My daughter says hi and then like a whale having breeched the surface and taken a gulp of air she turns to her side and dives back into the depths.

I scoop up my son and carry him down stairs. I don’t realize it until I am at the bottom of the steps, but I had been holding my breath the whole time. When it comes to waking up that girl is a mean one. Perhaps it wasn’t fair of me to place my son in harms way, but he alone has the power to disarm his sister’s rage. Why even risk waking her? I have tried that route as well, but things tend to get even uglier if you don’t inform her that your home.

I relax now, the danger has passed. Now I can play my favorite game with my son, “I’m gonna getcha, getcha, getcha.” Around and around the house we run. He screams in delight and its okay. Now that Sissy has returned to the land of nod she will be gone for hours and nothing will wake her. For the rest of the evening I get a break, just me, Mom, and my son.