'You can have that one'

Both children like to cuddle with me in the morning, which I love unless: 1) I haven’t finished my coffee yet; 2) they fight about it; or 3) both, which is usually the case. It goes something like this: whichever child wakes up first comes into bed with us. If it’s L she might fall asleep again, if it’s K no chance. At some point after this both girls are clamoring for cookies and eventually Ralf caves and goes downstairs to make the coffee. K runs after him and brings the cookies back upstairs and both girls immediately start fighting over the cookies. By the time Ralf shows up with the coffee everyone’s yelling, including me. Then there are about ten seconds of silence while the girls eat their cookies and Ralf and I desperately sip coffee. At this point one of two things happens: 1) someone starts clamoring for a second cookie; or 2) everyone wants to lay on mommy. Usually K kicks it off and comes for a cuddle, which is nice for about 2 seconds until L gets wind of it and comes to edge her out. Sometimes I wonder why they are both so jealous of each other when it comes to me since they both get (I think) plenty of parental love and attention. But there it is and cuddling all too often degenerates into tears over who gets to lay on Mommy’s right leg.

This morning was kind of cute, though. K made her opening bid for stretching out against me on my left and L immediately scented danger and arranged herself full-length on top of me, then casually rolled over to her right, thus cutting off her older sister. Despite the irritation this caused I had to admire her technique. K protested that L is selfish and always hogs all the choicer portions of Mommy. L sat up, pointed at Ralf and told K, ‘You can have that one.’