The Two Faces of My Daughter

Two stories: Same child.

Saturday morning right after The Boy left for his time with his Mom I went to go and get the nail clippers to try and cut The Girl's nails. She is quite difficult about it so they were getting kinda long. So she walked down the hall with me and wanted to hold the clippers as we went back to the living room. When I tried to take them from her to clip her nails she freaked. She thought SHE should be the one doing the clippers (we're in the middle of a ME-DO-IT! all the time kinda phase...). When I told her no and tried to clip her nails she had a major tantrum. She arched her back and fell on the ground and screamed this high pitched horrible sound and banged her fists to the ground.

I got up and was going to return the clippers to the bedroom (clearly there would be no clipping now...) when she reached out with her hand and tried to hit me as I walked by. I stopped and looked at her and told her no hitting and then proceeded down the hall. She got up and had a phone in her hand and followed me down the hall and met me halfway down. She looked me in the eye and tried to hit me with the phone. She followed me BACK down the hall with the sole purpose of hitting me. She looked up at me defiantly and I bent down to her level and grabbed the phone out of her hand and held her wrist and looked her in the eyes and told her very sternly that we don't hit. It hurts. I then got up and walked away from her and went into my bathroom to take a shower. (That's where I was headed anyway). She sat outside of my shower door and screamed at me during the. entire. freaking. shower. When I finally turned off the water and dried off she wasn't crying anymore. I opened the door (she had left and slammed it on me once I was in the shower) and she was sitting on the floor right outside of my bathroom door just looking at me. Talk about if looks could kill. She was pissed and she wanted me to know it.

I bent down and smiled at her and put my arms out to her and told her I loved her. She turned her head away. She didn't move a muscle in her body, but simply turned her head in the other direction. The attitude is simply overwhelming. I cannot believe she followed me down the hall, purposely hit me, then screamed at me, and then wouldn't talk to me. I can't even imagine when she is a teenager. I am in so much trouble.

You should know that we did make up but I had to joke with her and tell her "don't laugh...don't laugh...don't smile..." and then she did. And then I hugged and kissed her, but it took her some time. She made me work for it.

Same day, same child, about 4 hours later.

Brother comes home from Mom's house feeling yucky. He has a fever, has no appetite (even for him) and just wants to sleep. He feels pretty horrible. I am sitting on the couch with brother making him eat something before he goes to sleep and I am rubbing his head and hair. The Girl comes up to me and motions for her brother. I told her that he feel yucky and we need to be nice to him. She proceeds to stand next to me very gently patting her brother's head for a good 10 minutes. Then she rubbed his arm. She sang to him and said, "Feel better bruh-der." And then after he fell asleep? She went over and got two of her baby dolls and carried them around and rubbed their heads and patted them and sang to them. She totally took care of her brother. She's so effing sweet she kills me.

It's hard to believe it is the same child. But it is. She's one of a kind, that one...