The red bowl means a lot to Luke and Lily and to me it represents a difficult, yet completely understandable part of there current relationship.

They both want to use the red bowl, the fight over it, they take turns using it, etc. That would all be great expect at times it feels bit disproportionate to the situation, how much screaming and crying “should” happen over a plastic bowl? Not really sure to be honest, but today I felt like it was too much.

The extent to which Lily mimics, mimes, copies, Luke’s each and every move has grown more intense over the last few months. From Lily’s stand point this is a true expression of her love and admiration of her brother.

For Luke it all tends to be a bother and I often now hear an exasperated “Ahhh, why does she always do exactly what I do?”, which is also completely understandable and natural

As a daddy, trying hard to keeps things together at times and avoid melt downs, it is a real challenge.

I am constantly reminded of my own memory (who knows how accurate it is) of the point at which my sister and I stopped rough housing. She is older than I and up to a certain point she always won the fights, but I kept coming back because I adored the attention and physicality. Then one day I was big enough to “win” the fisticuffs and her being older (and therefore more advanced in the ways of the world), the fighting stopped abruptly and forever.

This morning I observed a moment that made me smile , but also help me decide to put the red bowl away for now.

Luke had the red bowl, he had grabbed it immediately upon getting to the breakfast table. Lily showed up a second later and got upset and and both left to go tell mom about it. Lily then came back first and snatched that red bowl off the counter and ran away! Luke saw her flying away with the red bowl and break down number two commenced. Inside I felt:

You go girl!