Smooth Operators

This was a great long weekend. We had our cousins from Connecticut who have an almost 6-year-old girl, big sister for our daughter. Both the girls had a gala time together. They arrived Thursday night that was spent reading books, munching mini pizzas and banana bread and watching TV. Finally, they called it a night at about 10:30 pm. The adults spent the night watching a movie while munching popcorns, eating gol gappas, relishing banana bread and washing it all down with spicy gol gappa pani and coke. I am not even going to look at the weighing scale this week! All of us caved in at about 2 am!
We welcomed the morning with cozy hugs from the girls. Both of them were so excited to be together but the rain did play a spoilsport for a while. They spent a good chunk of time making train station with the blocks. It was interesting to see how little ones speak their mind. Our girl who is typically shy among other kids was conducting herself very differently. “Can you bring the blocks here? Oh no, not those ones. I am asking you to bring the square ones”, said the big sister. “I want to put the triangle ones, that’s why I am not bringing the square ones”, said the little preschooler. “I don’t like those green triangles, they don’t look good here. Bring the red and yellow squares”, said the big sister again. “But I like those greens and I think they are making the station look nice”, said the preschooler. “I” was stressed to the fullest in this sentence. We, the parents were passively enjoying the show while apprehensively waiting for the dispute to begin. Contrary to our anticipation, the big sister calmly accepted and said “Okay then you can you use the yucky green ones”. It was remarkable that she made it a point to not to accept that the green ones do look good. The little one responded to this in the utmost sophisticated manner. “Yes, the green yucky ones do look good here so I am going to use them”. How suave were both in putting their thoughts across the table!! How much confidence would an individual need to possess so he can afford to indulge in this kind of conversation. The little one dared to speak her mind for once and was able to achieve the unexpected result while the big one, for once, let it go but not without expressing her dislike. She managed to leave a mark on the preschooler’s mind that sometimes even when we don’t like something we can let it happen just for the sake of it. So many disputes in our relationships could be solved without getting into ugly arguments if we can learn from the simple approach these two little girls demonstrated.
Once the sun was shining they made the sand art, did cycling where little one followed the two-wheeled big sister in her little tricycle. Then we all went to a golf driving range to try a hand and then a mini boating session. Finally we all were exhausted. Though it was hard for the big sister to bid goodbye to so much fun, a promise to meet soon did help in the end.