Girls will be girls

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I love girls.

Really, I do.

After all, I am a girl.

But there are times that I have to admit: Boys are so much easier.

Yesterday Christa was munching on her after school snack when she asked, "Mom, can we sit on the couch and talk about something?"

"Uh, sure."

Hhhhhmmmm. Moving to the couch. Must be serious.

After we settled on the couch, Christa shared her dilemma: It seems there's one girl at school who wants to play with Christa at recess. And when Christa says, "Not today, thanks"--or something along that line--the girl cries.

And then the girl tells the playground monitor that Christa has been mean to her.

And Christa gets in trouble.

And then Christa has to run a lap around the playground or she has to sit out from recess for 5 minutes.

That hardly sounded fair to me.

Time for some detective work.

So I made sure Christa was being nice to the other girl when she said, "Not today, thanks"--and it seems she is being nice. She just doesn't want to play with this one girl every day.

So, what's a 7 1/2 year old girl to do?

What's a mom to do?

Well, first, I told my daughter I understood. And then I asked if we could pray about it. And then I asked her what kind of choice she should make.

"A wise one."

"That's right. And how should you treat someone else?"

"The way I want to be treated."

"That's right too. Do you think that just for tomorrow--just tomorrow--you can be kind to this girl? And if she asks to play with you, that you can say yes?"

Christa thought for a minute.

"But what if she wants to play the next day?"

"Let's just think about tomorrow. Can you make the wise choice for tomorrow and be kind tomorrow?"

"Yeah, I can do that."

"Okay. Let's do that. Just for tomorrow. Let's see how it goes."

The report after school?

The girl asked to play with Christa during recess. Christa said yes--and they had a fun time together playing animals in the jungle.

And that was that.

To be continued ... I'm sure.

Because girls will be girls.