A definition of true friendship

Recently I wrote a wonderful piece by EnglishMum recently and felt inspired to respond with a post of my own and today I was reading the workshop prompts as set by Josie and she referenced the same post so I thought to myself that this was a sign so here's my take on sisterhood.

I have been blessed this week because someone whom I met when I was going through a very difficult time in my life, has come to stay for a couple of days. I had had prior notice that she might be coming but it was not until I received her text yesterday evening that it became real.

The funny thing was that she arrived to a house in chaos. We had recently received the girls' new bunk beds in the post and my OH had promised to assemble them last night. This was no easy task, it took four hours and A arrived in the middle of it. The mattresses were still in the guest bedroom, there was packaging all over the place and her first words were you should have told me it was inconvenient to which my response was no don't be daft, it will be fine and besides I really wanted to catch up with you. We have not seen each other for 10 months and could easily be that long before we see each other again. She concurred with me by saying that that was exactly what she wanted as well. In the end the girls were up until about 10pm which is an incredibly late night for them. They had a second dinner with us and we all had a Chinese take away because it was just easier.

I was all set to change our plans today because I was keen to spend time with her but she insisted that we kept the girls' original playdate with friends at the splashpark and tagged along. I offered her the opportunity of going shopping but she was keen to spend time with us all and it was lovely. In fact I was so grateful to have her in the car because I was able to leave her watching over my eldest who was fast asleep whilst I nipped into Sainsburys for her school uniform and some sandwiches - there was not enough time to get a picnic together before we left.

I am conscious that as I write this, I am not really defining what sisterhood means to me. It is the ability to reconnect instantaneously with someone without conscious effort. It is picking up the threads of conversations, thoughts and ideas where one left off months or years earlier. It is appreciating everything that the other person is. When I look at my friend, she emanates calm and that may be because she is a highly spiritual person, it may just be her nature. She also has an incredible capacity to give. She realised today that even though the girls were exhausted for different reasons they were going to struggle to sleep so she went upstairs and sat first on the youngest's bed and then on the eldest's bed and patted them to sleep. They loved this unexpected treat and it was so thoughtful because they did need the rest. Other things I value about her is her creative thinking powers, our conversations are always rich and often take unusual twists. I feel that I always have so much to learn from her in terms of her insights into situations.

In short I am grateful that I have her in my life. Such friendships in my experience are rare and I prize them highly. I have not named her because she is a very private person and I respect her wishes to remain anonymous. So what does sisterhood mean to you, what are your experiences of it?

The cost of having strong values

So I like a challenge which is why I have committed to write an entry for Josie's writing workshop despite the fact that it feels as if our house is falling down around our ears! The focus is on what is it that I refuse to compromise on and what is the impact on me.

This topic drew me in because as a Taurean, I am reknown for my tenacity which when overplayed becomes being bloody-minded to those around me. I am passionate about life and the importance of having values and therefore helping others to articulate what gives their life meaning and therefore find happiness in their choices. Before I go off into coach speak let's get into specifics.

One of the things that is important to me and my husband is that our children display good manners. On many occasions, often completely unexpectedly, we have total strangers come up to us in restaurants and comment on how well behaved our girls are and what a delight it is to see such young children behaving so well - they are 3 and 2. This of course gives one a glow and for me makes me feel that I may get some things wrong but at least I am getting something right.

That is the preamble for what comes next. Last Friday we were round at a friend of mine's house. She has two boys pretty much the same age as the girls so it is great to get the children together as it usually works well on a number of levels. Not last week. First off her youngest spent much of the afternoon crying for no apparent reason. My friend, whom I shall refer to as N, explained how he had had a swine flu jab earlier in the week - something which I can't understand anyone doing unless their child has severe asthma or a similar condition which means the effects of swine flu could be much more serious. I mentioned my view but managed, for me, to be quite diplomatic so I did avoid one potential hazard. So far so good. N then went on later to explain that her son was not usually like this to which I agreed but that due to the jab and other factors she felt that it was his way of punishing her. She felt therefore that she had to respond by cuddling him etc. At this point I happened to mention that if either of my two turn on the tears they get short shrift and I tend to say that I am going to count to three and I expect them to stop. Yes perhaps that was the moment I should have kept silent on my views as it all came home to roost not long after.

The four children sat down for supper. It was a delicious chicken risotto but my eldest did not eat much because she did not like the lemon flavour in the rice. In the end I finished hers and against my better judgement said she could have pudding as I really did not want her getting hungry later. When everyone had finished she wanted to get down. So I said casually what do you say to N? My expectation was that she would say please may I get down. She refused to say anything, wanted a cuddle and went all shy. I said that she needed to sit at the table until she was willing to say anything. Everyone else got down and played and I went to the toilet before we started getting ready to leave. I came back in and went over to have a quiet word explaining what I expected her to say. She then agreed to speak to N who came over and tried to be encouraging. No dice and by this time I felt that I could not drag the whole thing out any longer so I said to her either she said it or she could get down but there would be no treats the next day. She claimed she did not want any treats the next day, got down and the three of us got ready to leave. N was very reassuring and said that they had the same thing at times with the boys etc. etc. but after all that I had implied and said before, I did feel a bit of a plonker.

So would I take the same course of action again? I was reading someone's blog about disciplining children the other day and his view was that it is the child's decision whether they heed what you say when you explain that you do not like their behaviour. They may do what you want the next time, they may not. All that said the best thing to do according to him is to be consistent in terms of one's expectations each time so that the message given is unambiguous. Perhaps what I do regret is my attitude to her child which could be seen as smug so I may be more circumspect in terms of what I say in a similar situation another time. What is has shown me is that it is for all these reasons that I never claim to be an expert on parenting or to give advice for which I expect to be paid on this subject!