Yesterday morning I said good bye to my Elle before kindergarten and told her to have a fun day and that I would miss her while she was gone. She looked at me and said, "mama, just get your camera and take a picture of me and then if you get sad you can look at my picture and you won't be sad anymore". How could I pass that up?
Elle has been a roller coaster of emotions lately. I am sure it has to do with having a new member of our family combined with starting kindergarten. Lots of changes around here. I have just been trying to take it in stride. The other day she was upset with me because I did one pony tail in her hair instead of two. She had a complete and total melt down. We were running too late for me to redo her hair. The whole drive to kindergarten she sat in the backseat sobbing. I told her that this was a little crazy and that as soon as she settled down we could talk about it. So there she sat...with a wet, puffy face in her booster seat in the back of our car. All she kept repeating through her sobs was, "mama, do you not love your daughter? your daughter is crying and you don't care? how come you don't care about your crying daughter"? My "daughter"??? Leave it to Elle to add that little extra dramatic touch. It was all I could do to not laugh. Straight faced I responded back to her in 3rd person. I told her that I love "my daughter" very much and that "my daughter" was being a little bit dramatic considering this whole scene was all about a pony tail. Before she got out of the car I pulled over and had her come and sit on my lap up in the driver seat. How could I send her out the door like that? We talked about some different ways she could have handled her disappointment in her hairdo. I told her that I would do two pony tails in her hair the next day and that either way, she looked beautiful. She calmed down, I gave her a kiss and out the door she went.
I think things are settling down for her now. She is in more of a routine and is loving kindergarten. I am sure I have many years of these occasional emotional outbursts ahead of me. I just hope that "my daughter" will always know that "her mom" loves and adores her.
