Sensitive little sponges - very scary

DH and I had a massive fight last night. No yelling or shouting, just lots of tension and avoiding each other until after the girls were in bed, then crying.

Widget woke up in the middle of the night and wouldn't go back to sleep for hours, she kept calling for both of us and asking me if I was there. I ended up putting her in the bed with DH because Midget woke up, so she and I spent the night in Widget's bed (which was really uncomfortable amongst the menagerie of stuffed animals).

Then today both of them have been disturbed. Midget grizzled every time she was put down and Widget re-discovered every annoying habit she's ever had, from climbing over the lounge to screaming, whinging and even hitting Midget. We had lots of good times too, but they were on edge.

DH came home at lunchtime to talk and Widget insisted on sitting on both of us. Luckily we did manage to sort things out so we're OK, but she wouldn't eat lunch and continued the behaviour. Luckily it was cool in the evening and we took them outside and had a good play and run around and they went to bed fairly easily and happily.

It's really scary how it affected them. We did our best not to show them and I would have said we acted normally with them, but they picked it up anyway. And of course I was exhausted and upset today, so I wasn't up to dealing with them the best. It makes me really sad for kids who come from tense homes long term - we've had maybe 2 fights in 3 years and work really hard to keep communication open and look what it did to them. Imagine poor little kids who are around that all the time.