My Dramatic Non-Teenager

Oh Caroline. What an interesting child you are. At the ripe age of 6, you spend more time primping than I do (or ever did). You know the words to pretty much all the songs on the radio and if a song comes on you like in particular, you are so overcome with singing it that you have to close your eyes and sing your little heart out. You change your clothes multiple times a day and are rarely dressed for the appropriate season if we aren't leaving the house. You are constantly weaving tales and ideas for your younger siblings to follow and get very angry when no one will follow your directions exactly as you think they should be followed. You love your baby sister more than I would have ever imagine and seeing the budding relationship between you two warms my heart. You can play so sweetly with your little brother but start fighting with him over the most ridiculous issue within 2.3 seconds, and then go back to playing sweetly in another 3 minutes. You can be so mean and nasty to people if they try to hurry you or if you are feeling anxious and they are overwhelming you with reminders about what you are supposed to be doing. You love to read and are using your new reading skills constantly - it's hard to get you to go to sleep most night because you want to see what book you can tackle next. Your room is a constant wreck because you are so attached to every little item you've picked up along the way and never want to part with anything, even things that seem like trash to the rest of the world. You are the most amazing time waster - you can be in your room forever doing who knows what and have nothing more to show for it than a reallllllllly messy room and none of the tasks you were supposed to accomplished are done. (I think your imagination gets the better of you and you launch into some activity that makes you forget what you are supposed to be doing.) You have a vocabulary and way of expressing yourself that continues to amuse people everywhere we go - that is something that has never changed since you started talking!

This is my Caroline at age 6. She is beautiful, smart, and sassy. Oh, so sassy. On Friday morning she gave my MIL a run for her money as she talked back to her and was downright nasty because my MIL was trying to keep her on task so she could get to school on time. I am learning that rushing Caroline, especially when she's anxious about something, can result in a full scale melt down. And these days, a meltdown for Caroline isn't always a crying fest, it is often a nasty yelling fest where she shuts down and says semi-irrational things about how mad she is and how she hates everything she touches and makes you feel like an idiot for even trying to talk to her. Jason and I don't stand for that kind of behavior and thankfully my MIL will not either. Caroline has been put on alert that this kind of behavior is not to repeat itself or there will be consequences. (Taking away all your hair accessories should do it.) So I'm hoping she can go back to being the sweet granddaughter that I know she can be from now on. We talked about alternatives to how she acted and I hope she'll remember them for the next time she's in a bad mood.

In other Caroline news, I looked at Caroline's hair today (I told her I'd curl it with my old rollers) and when I looked at her undone hair (very rare to see it undone because she told me "flat hair is ugly hair"), I noticed these spikey pieces of hair sticking out of her bangs. I knew right away what she'd done but I asked just the same. Yep, she cut them. She says she did it a loooooong time ago, but given that I just curled her hair last Saturday, I would have noticed it then. It seems she was trying to cut the hair that is part of her cowlick because it kept standing up. Unfortunately now, it sticks up even worse but she doesn't agree with that at all. And given the weird way she styles her hair (clips, barrettes, hair bands galore), you probably wouldn't even notice it. She has decided too that she wants to grow her hair out long which is funny to me because of how much she hates it when I touch her hair and with it longer, she will inevitably need help. I told her that we could try it out but if she stops brushing it or doesn't let anyone brush it for her, we get it cut again. (She has super thick hair like me, so long hair is no walk in the park.) We'll see how this goes. More hair for her to do, she's very excited.