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| photo of a happier day |
“My dress scares me, mommy!”
One of the things that makes
motherhood the adventure of a lifetime are the constant surprises. This
morning, after my daughter had made her bed, brushed her teeth, gotten dressed
and had begun enjoying her breakfast, she started to mumble that the dress that
she was wearing scared her. I was dismissive and annoyed by this sentiment. The
time to make such sentiments known was upstairs in her room. Indeed, she could
have kept her thoughts to herself and simply worn something else. I actually
pick out her clothes for convenience. She is actually free to wear what she
chooses. She knows this because often she puts on something else.
In this case, she commented the
night before about how pretty her dress was and that she thought her friend had
the same dress. In the morning though, in the light of day and her Cheerios
induced haze, her thoughts changed. She didn’t dislike the dress. It actually
frightened her. Part of me thinks that her fear based comments were
manipulative. In general, being afraid is a way to get out of lots of things—sleeping
in her own bed if she’s awoken by a nightmare, watching a movie, or playing
with a particular toy. Fear is effective in our house. So, I responded by
telling her to finish her breakfast and to "come on"!
Becoming more insistent with children rarely works and did not here...
Then, daddy came down (A/K/A "Captain Save a Little Girl") , ignorant
of the fear and sympathetic to her concerns. To his credit, she did look rather
pitiful. Then, the baby was all like, “N what’s wrong, don’t cry!” This resulted
in her really letting the waterworks fly. I became the mean unfeeling mommy and
she was the Cinderella-type victim being subjected to wear the oh so scary knit
dress. It didn’t even have any pictures on it!
Tears prevented eating any more
food. Self induced Convulsions prevented food previously consumed from staying down. It was
high drama and my daughter was at the center. She could have won an Oscar!
Surprisingly, as soon as the "Evil Dress" was removed, her smiles returned and she was HEALED! Hallelujah!
It was such a miraculous recovery, Jesus may have taken notice. Unfortunately, it was raining hard this AM so there are no bus stop photos. That said, now that about nine hours have passed since the incident and the memories are more distant, I have more understanding about my daughter's feelings about the dress. Perhaps her comments about it being "scary" were misplaced, but she is six. So, she's still mastering the English language...
This is the second week of school and we are all feeling our way through. Perhaps, I will review my prior post entitled,
How to Get Out of the Door Without Tears Each Day. I think I need to. Perhaps, I will develop clairvoyant powers to identify dresses that have the potential to be "scary" even if they haven't been identified as such. Perhaps, I shall have more patience tomorrow. That's it. As Scarlett said, "Tomorrow is another day!"
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