Josiah was not happy about getting a little sister.
For the first few months, he was grouchy, mean, and nasty….all the time.
Then he started getting the spark back in his eyes, but he was still mean. Poor Lily has been kicked, pinched, hit, called names, shoved down in the bathtub, had the door slammed in her face, and her big toe cut with scissors.
We’ve been trying everything. Every kind of consequence we can think of. He’s had a positive incentive sticker chart. He gets little prizes on good days (and there’s not very many good days). We have been talking and talking and talking to him. About how big brothers are supposed to be their little sister’s rescuer, protector, superhero.
Though she doesn’t make it easy either. She is stubborn and strong-willed and she starts screaming if he just looks at her cross-eyed. Quite often I have both of them in separate corners, screaming their heads off.
But I’ve wondered if Josiah is ever going to get it. Or if I’ll just be visiting him in prison.
Slowly, slowly, I’ve been hearing them giggle together. And now, at bedtime, he makes sure to say, “I love you, Lily!”
Then there was this morning. We were playing outside on the trampoline, and Josiah stopped at one point and ran into the house. He came back out with two cups of water.
“I didn’t know if Lily was ‘firsty, so I brought her some water too.”
And then, when she finished hers, he poured some of his water into her cup.
And my heart melted and I got all teary.
Maybe there is hope after all.
