Why I didn’t throw the Barbie away

They weren’t fighting over the fancy Barbie.

Not the mermaid with glitter hair.

Not the one with the rotating wardrobe.

Nope.

Just a Barbie with painted-on purple underpants.

We have at least 100 Barbies in this house. But today? This one…this very average, very basic Barbie, was apparently the rarest jewel in the kingdom.

Harper had it first, playing happily. Then Lynnlee spotted it and suddenly had to have it.

Because Daddy bought it for her once upon a time, and therefore, Harper wasn’t allowed to touch it.

Obviously.

I tried everything.

Redirecting struck out 

Distracting a no  go 

Timeouts, HA ok we all know that didn’t work 

Bribery. (Yes, I offered chocolate. Don’t judge me.)

It would quiet down for five minutes, I could almost taste my sanity returning and then BAM…

Barbie World War III was back on.

We made a temporary truce long enough to cook dinner together (recipe coming Sunday!) and even picked up Hailey from practice.

But the second we walked back through the door?

The battle resumed.

And I’m not gonna lie…I was this close to throwing that Barbie away.

Not as a teachable moment, lets be real Harper would have just dug it out, 

Just a “mommy has reached her limit” moment.

But right as I reached for it… something stopped me.

They already use the big girl forks now.

You know the ones, the Elsa forks, the Minnie Mouse spoons, the plastic utensils they once fought over like their lives depended on it?

Gone.

Now they grab the grown-up silverware like it’s nothing.

No more character spoons, no more fighting over who gets the glitter handle.

And I realized:

This Barbie fight?

It’ll be forgotten.

The shouting, the tug-of-war, the dramatics all of it will fade.

But one day, I’ll walk through this house and it’ll be quiet.

Too quiet.

And I’ll miss it.

I’ll miss the shrieks, the chaos, the way they cared about anything that much.

Even a Barbie in purple underwear.

So I sat down and we played.

The work waited…

The dishes waited…

The emails waited!! 

We made up silly voices then we gave  Barbie a whole personality and a backstory and an accent, because why not.

And somehow… the fighting stopped.

In the middle of all the crumbs and the chaos…

We made a memory.

And maybe, just maybe…

That’s the part I’ll hold onto someday.

Not the fight.

Not the mess.

But the way we sat in the middle of it all 

and just played.