Back in 2008 our family had briefly moved into a new home. At the time I had a teen daughter and a four-year-old daughter. The teen, Raven, was in school full time and my four-year-old, Grace, had not yet started school.
Raven chose to have her bedroom in the basement, so she could have more room and privacy. That morning before Raven left for school, she asked me to please not let Grace dig in her stuff while she was away. Grace, like many four year olds, loved to play with her older sister's stuff.
That afternoon, I was very busy unpacking and setting up our new home. I started to wash dishes and had not paid attention to what Grace was doing around the house.
As I stood at the sink doing dishes, I had been snapped out of my thoughts by a hard slap on the back of my leg. I instantly spun around and saw Grace standing behind me. I scolded her and said, "Don't you ever hit your mother again!"
Grace's face was absolutely white and she had this look of utter fear and anger. She crossed her arms across her chest and screamed, "Don't you ever do that again to me, mom!" She busted out in tears and ran into the family room.
I shut the water off and followed her in the other room. I asked her what did I do to her? She cried uncontrollably and said, "You snuck up behind me in Raven's room downstairs and screamed, 'Grace!'"
I explained to her I did not. "You saw me washing dishes," I said. She just stared straight ahead in deep thought. She knew inside I was never behind her downstairs.
I put a TV show on for Grace and went downstairs to see what was going on. There was Raven's jewelry box on the floor and the drawers were pulled open, and I could see Grace was just about to ransack Raven's stuff. I really believe she heard a voice and the voice was attempting to stop her from once again invading her sister's things. Grace would not go back down in that basement for a long time. It was like a second mom that day watching over Grace.
