Spring Break is Hard on Everyone, Especially Their Butts

I was down in the basement sorting laundry when suddenly my mommy-senses tingled. Somewhere my children were fighting. I raced up to the TV room, where the girls were yelling and crying and hitting each other with their Wii remotes.

"Kimmy bited my butt!!" sobbed April, clutching the wounded cheek.

"What the?! KIMMY!" I yelled. "You BIT her BUTT??"

Flustered, Kimmy reverted to her standard defense. "It was a accident!" she insisted.

"No, it wasn't!!" cried April, falling to the floor in devastation. I pried her hand away long enough to check her butt--a little red, no blood. No need for medical intervention. I turned my full attention on Kimmy.

Like a desperate cornered animal, Kimmy went on the offensive. "She made me do it!!"

"What?!" I was incredulous. "Unless she sat on your mouth and mashed your jaws together with her hands, there is NO WAY she made you bite her butt!!"

"She just made me mad," she finished lamely.

"That's it!! You are GROUNDED from all electronics for two days!" Furious, I delivered the verdict and separated the girls.

The next day, Kimmy was subdued by the knowledge that she was still in the electronics-free doghouse, and spent quite a bit of time up in her room, quietly playing legos. Late in the afternoon, I needed to run out for a quick errand and left the girls home. They hate shopping, especially when there's so much nothing to be done. If you're going to judge me, don't let it be for that. Please.

When I came back about twenty minutes later, I was met at the kitchen door by both girls eagerly clutching Wii remotes.

"I forgived Kimmy and Kimmy forgived me and we really wanted to play together on the Wii so we are playing together on the Wii," explained April in her usual thorough fashion. Kimmy and April looked up at me hopefully.

I wanted to be upset, to insist that Kimmy was still grounded, I really did.  But if they've found a way to forgive each other and play together, who am I to get in the way? Isn't that what I was trying to foster in the first place? Isn't it my job as a parent to raise two children who don't let a little butt-biting get in the way of their friendship? And so I let them keep playing.