Monday, September 15, 2008

One Man's Trash

Finny had a pre-dinner meltdown. You know the ones. They are prompted by something so mundane, so pedestrian, so overlook-able that you know it is nothing you can fix. All you can do is let it run its course and throw dinner down fast to move the whole nighttime process along at a quicker clip.

This wee tantrum came in the form of a dishwasher melted water bottle. No biggie. But then it was. As they do, the meltdown morphed into another issue and then another. Finny finally settled on one cause:she didn't have Molly's beautiful freckles. Why didn't she have them? How could she get them? Why did I make them for Molly and not for her? I spirited her out of my chaotic kitchen, laid her down and told her that as far as I was concerned, her little nose was exactly perfect just as it was. I told her I made her nose because it fit her and that if it were different, it wouldn't be hers. She insisted that it WOULD still be her nose. It would just have "three little brown spots, here, here and here". All I could do was kiss that teeny, blemish-free nose (now filled with snot and soaked in tears) and tell her there will always be someone who has something slightly (or a lot) better than you have. Bottom line: mommies always think you are just right, exactly how you are. Because we made you that way. Sniff, sniff.

Molly chimed in on the issue while I was putting her to bed. She had overheard me talking to Finny (little eavesdropper! Must remember that next time I am on the phone!). She insisted that I DIDN'T make her freckles because she didn't have them as a baby. Hmmmm. "Well," I said, "I put them underneath your skin, so they'd come out later." She was thrilled. "You packed me a surprise," she grinned. "It is the best one, because I wear it every day." Now, there is positivity in action.

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