THINGS I HEARD TODAY FROM MY SIX YEAR OLD

It was a day today. Please understand that by this I mean it was not a good day. Actually, from 7 am until 2:30 pm, it was a perfectly normal, lovely day.

And then the first grader came home from school.

And all hell broke loose.

I hadn't been feeling well since I woke up, but could manage with Baker and Cameron who are happy to watch cartoons and chase each other around the living room with buckets on their heads.

When Lauren came home, I explained to her that I had a sore throat and a headache and she had the option of playing upstairs with her siblings or watching a movie.

Much to my chagrin, she choose the unauthorized Option #3 which was to whine, complain, yell, cry, fight with Baker, and throw roughly 17 temper tantrums in the three hours before Brian came home and I could crawl into bed.

Things were said, on both our parts. Oh, we had some gems today! Examples include, but are certainly not limited to:

Lauren: "Why can't you EVER do anything fun with us?"
Me: "I do fun stuff with you all the time, but today I feel sick and just want to rest."
Lauren: "You ALWAYS ruin EVERYTHING!"

While doing homework, Lauren told me she had to "code" a list of words. I had no idea how to do this and she, of course, breezed through the whole list in about 20 seconds. I asked her to explain to me what she was doing and she rolled her eyes and said, "Didn't you go to the first grade AT ALL?!"

Lauren (when asked why she was crying again): "I just had a really hard day at school."
Me: "Okay, why don't you tell me something that happened that upset you and we can talk about it."
Lauren: silence, since she can't think of anything
Me: "Well, it seems like you had an OK day, you are just grumpy right now."
Lauren: "This is the WORST day of my life!"
(This last statement was followed by much stomping and growling up the stairs and then a very angry door slam. Which was perfectly fine by me because I wanted her to be in her room, away from me, in the first place.)

She is going to be a real hoot in about seven years, isn't she?

But, of course, she redeemed herself later in the evening. She came to me and was all excited about something, just a huge smile and she couldn't stop giggling. She told me that, awhile ago, a boy in her class told her that he loved her. Then she said, "I've been thinking about it for the past 2 weeks, and I think I'm ready to tell him that I love him, too." She actually blushed when she said this! It was so cute and I was feeling really proud that she took time to think about it and wanted to make sure she really meant it before she said it back to him. That is so silly, but I felt like we had a really level-headed girl on our hands.

Then, tonight, I was reading in bed and I could hear Lauren softly singing lullabies to Cameron in their room. At first, Cameron was chattering away and playing around and then, as Lauren sang, Cam got quieter and by the 4th song, wasn't making any noise at all. I seriously think that Lauren sang her to sleep. It was so sweet and, after all that happened earlier in the day, brought tears to my eyes.

And I thought, maybe we are going to make it with this girl after all.