Kaitlyn and the Magazines

Kaitlyn has always been dramatic.  Even from the beginning, when she was a toddler, she would scream for food instead of asking nicely.  So it shouldn't have surprised me when she came downstairs crying.  Now, I am most certainly not the perfect parent.  There are most assuredly times when I don't have patience or presence of mind enough to calmly sit through an explanation or try to walk the children through the proper procedure for dealing with feelings or stolen toys.  But, on that particular night, I pride myself that I had had enough rest, or enough alone time, or enough chocolate to be able to survive that particular conversation.

It seems that Dylan had taken some magazines out of the trash.  Magazines that Kaitlyn had thrown away.  And this bothered her.  Never mind that she had somehow been mailed 2 copies of the exact same magazine.  And never mind that she had already done all the activities in both magazines.  And never mind that she had thrown them away because she was done with them.  This was life altering, problematic for her.  But, to be honest, I couldn't tell if she was more upset that I wasn't mad that Dylan had gone through the trash or that Dylan had something that used to be hers, but wasn't anymore.  And, when I called her on the tattle telling, she just wiped her eyes with her damp tissue and said "You just don't understand!"

It took me back suddenly to my teenage years, when I felt like my world was ending, or the sky was falling.  And my parents did their best to calmly talk me down.  Thank heavens for small blessings :)