their fight

I often start blog entries and never publish them for whatever reason.  I decided to look through all the ones I have unpublished (as most need to be published!), and I came across this one I thought I'd post.  Even if it is a couple months old now!

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August 2012

Today I was walking by the school room, and Emma was really upset.  As she was drawing a picture & crying really hard, she told me that Violet was calling her names.  I tried getting Violet's side of the story, and she said she was mad at Emma, so she started calling her names.  It was obvious, fairly quickly, that Violet was now doing it solely for the reaction from Emma, regardless of what the reason was when it started (though I never did hear her call Emma anything).

Before I could do much more, I was interrupted by the babies screaming, so I took one to Tyler.  When I came back out, Emma was still crying (she was very, very upset!), and she told me that Violet wouldn't stop.

I wasn't sure what was going on, so I decided to let Violet lead the way.  This was our conversation:

ME:  "Violet, does your heart tell you that you are making a right choice or a wrong choice in how you are treating Emma?" 

VIOLET:  "Wrong."  It was obvious she was starting to feel bad.

ME:  "What should you do if you are making wrong choices and won't stop?"

VIOLET:  "I should go in my room."

ME:  "Yes, and you should stay there until you are ready to make right choices."

VIOLET:  "But I'm done making wrong choices now."

ME:  "Then what are you supposed to do?"

VIOLET:  "Say I'm sorry and make it right."

Before Violet could come over to say she was sorry, Emma came over to me.  She handed me the picture she had drawn.  I knew it was the one I had seen her drawing earlier when I first noticed her crying.  She had been drawing it when she was first telling me about Violet calling her names.

I opened it up, and this is what I saw:

In case you can't read it, it says "Violet I love you."

It wasn't what I was expecting!  It took me a second to process it, and I said, "Did you draw this while Violet was saying mean things to you?"  She told me yes.  

Violet was right there, and I showed her the drawing, and I read it to her.  She looked confused and surprised, and then really ashamed.  Her whole demeanor changed.  She said, "For me?"  We said yes.  She very sincerely apologized to Emma.  And, I heard her apologize again a few minutes later.  It was obvious she really felt bad.  In the end, things resolved between the two of them very quickly.  Violet's attitude changed and all the hurts were mended for Emma.  

I know it's a silly little story, but it didn't seem like a little story when it was happening.  As silly as it might sound, it really touched my heart, and Tyler's too, when I told him.  It left me thinking what a great example that was.  

And, now for the funny part.  haha!  Want to know what names Violet was calling Emma?  They were along these lines:

"You're a crook."

"You're a crook foot."

"You're a crook (insert made up word)" 

Yep.  It's pretty awful.