She truly broke my heart today.

Even on the days when she is hollering at me for no explicable reason. When she fights me in the morning as I am putting on her clothes. When I make her go to daycare, when she doesn't want to. I love this little girl. I learned the other day that there is a phrase I say when I drive that I need to watch myself on. I hear her tell me nearly every day that she likes my hair, that she thinks it is very pretty. To which I am always sure to remind her that I admire her hair as much as she does mine. (If she reads this later in life - I want her to know that is not an exaggeration. I nearly fried my hair off with perms trying to make it be as curly as hers is every day. She can confirm with Ninny.) I love this little girl more than words can say.

We go to Smith's grocery store for three reasons. There is not a crazy - holidazed - walmart attached to it, they have decent prices, and they have these awesome little carts. Of course I was dancing to the 80's music they were playing over the PA (another thing I consider a perk) so naturally - she did the same.

Then when we got home, she kept on dancing - even when there was no music.

She is silly and I love her imagination.

For instance, this is the scene where the mermaid barbie and baby duckie meet for the first time and duckie admires barbie's hair.

These nifty implements were among the plas-tastic stocking stuffery toys you can pick up for $1 or under. She got a package of rings, bracelets, and the tiara that came with matching earings. But this little trio cost me more than the $3 pricetag. I have known for a while that she admires Dora's hair. And that she admires one of her friends at school for her hair (which is cut and combed just like Dora's) and that she has been admiring my hair. When we put these things on her she decided she needed her dress. So we put that on her.

She went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror. She stared at herself for some time. When I went in to the bathroom she turned around and looked at me with a look in her eye that I had never seen before. She looked at me and said, "now I am a real princess."

I have been avoiding everything Disney princess for exactly this reason. You can't tell your family that. Or, rather, you can tell your family but they send you something with princesses on it anyway. I spend a lot of time telling her she is beautiful. I spend a lot of time making sure she gets to wear the dresses (that I never had an interest in when I was little) and spend the time having tea and playing with her with her toys.

It broke my heart that it took these small shiny pink plastic bobbles to make her feel important, to make her feel pretty, to make her feel loved. So I told her, "this is probably the most important thing I will ever tell you, and I want you to remember it for a very long time. These things do not make you pretty, you make them pretty and you have always been a real princess."

She stroked my cheek. And she just looked at me. I kissed her cheek. She said, "I love you, Queen." I told her, "I love you, Princess."

How do I fight against all things commercial. How do I give my daughter the confidence to know that even with boogers coming out of her nose and dirt from head to toe that she is every bit as beautiful as the little girl she saw in the mirror tonight. That real beauty comes from inside. Just like dancing in the store - she's going to do what I do. So now I am going to do better about showing my inner beauty all the time.

Found Objects

"I am going to need this for my playdough."

It isn't the first time a heart has been carelessly thrown in the gutter. It won't be the last. But we rescued it and Xyla plans to make good use of it.

I don't know quite how to describe today. It was a bit of chaos. Slimming down some stock footage. Duplicating, searching video. Preparing for the big move. (Not me, in case you wondered. I signed the longest lease I have ever heard of.) I impressed two people with my ability to hoist a large box of beta tapes onto my shoulder, haul them to the dumpster, open the dumpster and drop in the tapes without losing the box. Of course if they'd been opening doors and the dumpster . . .

I had to wade through the thick river of emotional footage of people's homecoming surprises and pick out shots that match a specific script. That is the hardest thing for me to do. It exhausts me when other people are terribly emotional. I know how horrible that sounds but when you train yourself to wait for the tear . . . and pack up the gear and head back to air it at 5, 6, 10 and 11. You have to be able to shut it all off. You have to know what makes other people feel those feelings, without feeling them yourself.

There are thousands of stories like that one and if you take the time to get all emotional about it yourself, well, you are going to miss your deadlines and then you won't have a job. I guess that was what made me good at the job - not being emotional enough but knowing what makes others emotional. I say exhausting because it's not like you can get the beginning of the hug and cut then run. You have to stay for the whole hug . . . or kiss. . . or exaggerated for the camera awe-strike. Some people never want to let go. But you have to stay for the follow through. If your anchors don't get choked up a little - you didn't get it all. Enough about that.

Why am I telling you this?

Recently I was awarded an "employee of the month" type award. I really appreciated it. It's a bit of a popularity contest only quality of your work oriented. It comes with a parking spot right next to the door. It is really nice to get to park in the reserved spot because it means that when you come back from lunch - no one has snaked your space. (The people who work across the street are horrible about doing this.) I park in backwards because you can't see around the evening traffic to get out the way I get out unless you are parked backwards. I got in, and pulled forward just a little to indicate to still-standing cross traffic that I would like to cross the line and go the other way. The woman immediately noticed me and made a space in the lane for me to cross. This is two way traffic. I looked right, I looked left, I looked right again and started to cross the lane and got 3/4 of the way into the lane I was going to travel in and someone in a white Toyota was driving the wrong way in the lane. It happens sometimes when people decided that since they aren't exiting the gate that they don't have to wait in line to make the left turn just before the intersection.

Roads wet and black ice in places it is amazing that the person was able to stop just before they hit me, t-bone . . . driver's side. They turned their wheel right (keeping in mind that there is a long line of cars on that side) and narrowly missed three cars on that side by "correcting". I pushed the gas pedal and got the back end of my car out of the way in time for them to slide by the rear of my vehicle.

Then whoever it was kept driving in the wrong lane.

All I kept thinking was, "I have a three-year-old waiting for me. What would her life be like if she never saw me again because this guy had to save five minutes in line. Would he think it was worth the risk then?"

I so desperately wanted to go around the corner and track him down (there are only two places he can go) and ask him that. But remembering the guy who wanted me to get out of my car and fight him because I waved him around me in the drive through lane while I took a few seconds to situate my kids cup in her cup holder before we drove away from the store, I decided there was potential that not seeing my kid again is totally still a possibility at that point, if I make a poor decision. So I drove on to pick up my daughter as always. No way I was going to miss that today. Not when the choice is mine.

As I put Xyla in the car she looked at me and said, "are you happy mommy?" I said, "Yes, Xyla - I am very happy." We got in the car and headed home. She rescues the heart from the gutter. As we are walking inside she says she wants some hot chocolate - with three (holding up four fingers) marshmallows.

Are you happy?

I was holding desperately on to my daughter with one arm that I felt giving way, trying to keep her from reaching over the side of the cart toward the candy aisle at the grocery store. She sits in the big basket because she is getting too big to fit in the seat in the cart.

She usually helps me unload the cart on the belt but lately she has been getting distracted by the hoards of chocolate that sit just within reach if . . . only. . . she could . . . reach . . . one more . . . and that’s when I try to help her realize that the cart is about to roll out from under her and land her square on her head on the floor. I am going to admit that sometimes this comes in the form of yelling. I am never proud of having to scold her in public but sometimes the message has to be fast and forceful and I am sure that to other people it sounds horrible.

She is an adventurous child. She has been trying to free climb the bookcases since before she could walk. Even after she slipped into a pond, she still stood with her toes hanging off the edge of the bank of the lake later the same day. She has no sense of danger most of the time. The only thing that seems to scare her is the Grinch but even then, it is her favorite movie.
I know she is at the age where defiance is normal.

I thought the level of defiance she exhibited at two was relatively mild. She has done really well, until recently. When we moved here I placed her in this daycare. I have been in awe of the way being around other kids her age has helped her with her speaking abilities. Unfortunately, she has picked up some other bad habits. The whining. And this is why the A&SQ frustrates me so much. When she would have difficulty accomplishing some task, it used to be really easy to get her to stop, assess the situation, work out a solution then try it. It used to be really easy. Now she has learned that when you have trouble with something, you are supposed to whine until it magically gets done.

I know why it is so tempting to just reach over and do it yourself. The whining is worse than fingernails on a chalk board. Especially when you can’t do or say anything to get it to stop. I had been lucky, until now, that my kid was responding well to the way we accomplished things. I don’t know how to change it back because I don’t know if she has just hit “that stage” or if she has learned the behavior from the other kids at school. They have decidedly more hours of influence on her than I do in the day.

She is asserting that she wants to do things herself. So I let her. When she wants me to help her with the same things, I help her. She is at the magical age where she doesn’t know if she wants to be a baby or a “little girl” (she insists that she is not a “big girl” because I am a “big girl”.) Most of the things she does that are dangerous or unacceptable (behavior-wise) she is looking to entertain me with them. I am usually NOT amused. But I can tell when she is proud of what she is doing because she will ask, “Are you happy, momma?”

This slays me. Overall, yes, I am happy. I am happy that so many things in my life have improved. I am happy that I am able to provide for my child. I am happy that she is able to communicate with me. I am not happy that she picks up a bag of snack popcorn and dumps the entire contents onto the back seat of my car. I am not happy that she takes the entire contents of her toy box into the living room and dumps them all over, then refuses to help pick them up when she is finished playing with them. (She picks up at school all the time, just refuses to at home.)

I am not happy that I can’t fix one problem without there being three or four more problems waiting for me when I finish that because there is no one to absorb her energy or distract her or . . . or . . . any number of things that would be more positive for her life than me getting frustrated because I don’t get to hold or play with my child because I have to clean up after her constantly at an age where she is capable of helping or at least not causing more chaos. I can’t spend the time I need to, breaking these habits by modeling better behavior because I want to pull out my hair and scream – and yes, whine. I finally understand the Calgon commercials.

That is the lot I have in life though. Balancing those things. Trying to control my frustration so that I don’t damage my child emotionally for life. I don’t get to complain because it is a situation I chose for myself. The harder part that I am having trouble with is trying to explain to the child whose first word was “happy” that there are other emotions, it is ok to feel them and there is a right and wrong way to deal with them. That every person deals with their emotions differently and that the answer is not always to try to make the other person be – happy.

It will be tough to explain also, that what makes her happy is not always what makes other people happy.I think I am doing ok with teaching her this because every once in a while she will cry, for seemingly no reason. I tell her there is nothing to cry over, that whatever just happened is not an event that requires tears. She flatly tells me, “I need to cry”. I forget that. I forget that she is not numb to that emotion like I am, that sometimes other people do need to cry.

I am known for my stoicism. I was asked by my aunt to deliver my grandfather’s eulogy because I am more stoic than she is, and she is also known for being particularly callous. I am proud though that I am teaching my child that she needs to speak up sometimes when she “needs to cry” and ask for what she needs to make herself feel better. Most people get bogged down in life because they don’t know how. That is a skill most people never develop but one I hope she never loses.