Teen Siblings

Every mother has this charming little vignette that plays through her mind about how her various children will love and care for one another.

The older protecting the younger.

The younger seeking comfort and advice from the older.

From the minute a sibling is born we pose them together.

We "Awww" at their adorable moments.

Our hearts sigh at their tender gestures to one another.

DING DING DING....... Wake up Mama!!!!!

These siblings grow up.

They fight over stuff and attention.  They love one minute and hate the next.

They catch you up in their vortex of push/pull love......

And then they become teens.  Doors slam.  Voices yell.  Barbs are traded and increasingly advance to "The Line" and once breaching "The Line" of  societal propriety, once again intervention is required.

Contact is verboten and disgusting.

Contact in public grounds for beheading.

Beheading carried out with undue cheerfulness and merriment..... if Mama didn't intervene.

With great apology to the parents of toddlers who look forward to days coming when "Mine" and "Don't look at me" and "Get away" are soon over....... NOT.

I tried to take a nap on Saturday.  My head was on the pillow 30 seconds.  Yelling.  Stomping. Mama wrath unleashed.

Just like when they were three.

Only now they can outrun you, out smart you and you cannot throw put them in their cribs to cool of (and so you can cool off).

But.

Every now and again.  There is a glimpse. A fleeting moment

That maybe most of the jibes are bluster.

That the barks are worse than the bite.

That under all the "Eww" and "You're gross" a tiny seed of love grows in a weedy patch of their hearts.

I snapped this sequence of two of my favourite teens on the beach after a fairly trying 24 hours.....and I can see the tiny seed of love......please tell me you see it too......????

My heart continues to believe my version of the sibling love story..... Love will win!