It was in this gentle chaos of the post-bath dressing that the nighttime pull-up, the last remnant of her potty training, tore. It tore, as I knew it would one day, as I expected it to each night, as I watched her lurch into it, pulling, spinning, tripping, singing and dancing while dressing for bed (her, not me, for the most part).
“Elaina…” I started, exasperated, caught between my frustration at her unrepentant carelessness and my awareness that this wasn’t, after all, such a terribly big deal.
“That’s okay,” she replied. “I got a new one.”
And, indeed, she had…but that’s not really the lesson I wanted her to take away from this experience. “We don’t carelessly break things and just expect to get a new one.” Of course, I’m thinking, I have no plan, no alternative. I can’t really go anywhere from here, and I’m wondering how obvious the contradiction is that she can actually ‘just expect to get a new one’ in this case. She’ll catch you on this stuff.
Backing away from the “reasonable expectations” argument, I continued. “It’s…just not the way to treat things. You know how unhappy it makes me when you ruin things like this.”
“I know how you feel, Dad,” she replied seriously.
“…You do?”
“Yes. And I forgive you.”
Sometimes…I just don’t have a response for her.
Posts
2 comments:
I can just see YOU "pulling, spinning, tripping, singing and dancing".........funny thought! :)
oh, that all sounds so familiar . . . always good to be reminded that bedtime has that flare of craziness for all families : ) Or at least other families! I'm glad to hear she was able to forgive you ; )
Post a Comment