Tender heart

My precious, sensitive 4 1/2 year old daughter is the light of my life, and the embodiment of all things wonderful about little girls. She's tender and loving, inquisitive and oh-so-intelligent. She's also deaf. Well, not really deaf. Just maybe not inclined to listen to me sometimes.

So yesterday morning, I asked her to brush her teeth as we were about to go to church. And she started in that direction. 5 minutes later I hadn't heard the water begin running, and my daughter hadn't emerged from the bathroom. I went to check, and she hadn't yet made it to the bathroom...she was peering into the hermit crab tank and wondering aloud who keeps hermit crabs company once they dismember and eat their mates. Aargh. I repeated my instruction to brush her teeth, she really did do it this time, then I asked her to get her sandals and wait by the door.

I packed up her brother's things, changed a poopie, put the dog in her kennel, ran back up the stairs to grab my Bible, and realized that my daughter's lonely sandals still sat by the door...but she was playing in her room with a ribbon she had found. By this time, I was mad. I told her that I shouldn't have to ask her 29 times to do anything, explained that obedience means the first time, all the way, blah blah blah.

I didn't even get out my sentence before her face crumpled and sobs overcame her little body. From behind her back, she pulled out a picture of me when I was pregnant with her. Apparently she had just been looking at it. It was taken when I was at my baby shower, and exclaiming over a little frilly dress that my own little doll would soon wear.
"I just want you to feel this way about me again, Mommy," she wailed.

And there you go. Whether or not we're out the door at 8:20, she gets to me. We were late, I was ready to cry myself, and I sat down on the floor with her and rocked my baby/child.
She still needs her Mommy.

Next week my plan is to let her Daddy be in charge of her primping...