There's a pile of laundry not yet packed away and a sink full of unwashed dishes, but I'm letting it slide tonight because today was a day of keeping promises and loving care.
My little one has been going through a bit of a rough patch. She is a bright, fun-loving, full of life personality and she wears her heart on her sleeve.
A couple days ago we went to an informal house-warming/playdate thing next door and LL was super excited to meet Amelia who is a relative of our neighbour.
Things seemed to start off well enough and I had packed activities that both girls could do together. Puzzles, colouring pages and a "keepy uppy" balloon filled with confetti I figured were good choices.
Amelia seemed a bit shy and reserved at first but slowly the interaction seemed to ramp up and I thought it was going well when they were playing tag with each other in the front yard.
Unfortunately things started devolving at some point a little while later and Amelia seemed to be less interested in interacting with LL and more withdrawn.
LL just wanted to get her back to the sunny side of the visit and tried to sit next to her, tried to ask her questions, tried to tickle her to get her to laugh.
After realising that none of this seemed to be working, LL gave up and decided to rather play "keepy uppy" with the balloon with the adults as Amelia didn't want to play and I had reminded LL to not try and force her to if she didn't feel like it.
We actually had quite a bit of fun and soon she had roped almost everyone into the game.
Soon after this Amelia started having a bit of a meltdown and her parents decided it was time to leave. I agreed and started packing up puzzles, felt tip markers and the like and getting our belongings in order. We left shortly thereafter.
For the next 2 hours LL had an emotional meltdown and I listened, talked, explained and comforted as best I could. She could not understand why Amelia "hated" her as she put it. She also expressed feelings of anger, frustration and hurt towards me for not spending enough time with her. She let it all out. I listened and tried to understand from her perspective. I apologized for her feeling the negative things she did and asked questions so that she could work through the emotions and we could come to a point where she could be ok enough to sleep (by this time she was overtired and desperately needed to reset). We eventually got there.
I enquired the following day if Amelia was ok and what the cause of the issue was. I was told that she had been feeling jealous of how cute and adorable everyone thought LL was. This was so sad to hear because LL wasn't being anything other than her absolute authentic self. My kid has got her first hater at the age of 5. I felt bad for Amelia feeling that way when LL had tried so hard to help her feel better, to no avail.
I also felt really bad for my kid because she felt so utterly rejected.
Today I left most of my work to the side so that I could spend some time playing with her. She wanted to pretend that she ran a hospital, so we played that, she wanted to run "LL's best salon" so I made her a sign, she put some makeup and stuff on her table and I became her customer.
We spoke to each other as if I was her first client of the day. She repainted my nails, brushed my hair and gave me an exfoliating face scrub (with toothbrushes and aqueous cream) which was actually really nice, then I let her do my makeup. I only vaguely resembled Robert Smith - she's not even 5 yet.
We had dinner together in the "lounge bed" and watched The Wild Kratts before bath time.
I asked if she had a good day playing together and having mommy-daughter day and she said "Mommy I didn't like it - I loved it!" That made my heart smile. She's a sweet kid. Pure of heart, gentle, loving, stubborn as all hell, but she's also really sensitive just like me. I know that I need to be there for her to help her through these big emotions and the hard days. So there's a pile of laundry and some dirty dishes...who cares? I had far more important things to take care of.