do you ever feel cool?

do you ever feel like you're cool? maybe you feel like you're having a cute day or smart day or a good hair day? maybe you feel witty or amusing. well, i have the solution for that. just spend some time w/ my child & you will be right back down to earth in no time at all. she never gives compliments, but i've been trying to teach her to notice & express appreciation for people & the efforts they make lately. i'll encourage her to tell her friend that her hair cut looks nice or the picture someone drew is pretty. sometimes i even use myself to try to encourage her to pay some positive attention to someone besides herself. recently i was getting ready for a night out; i'd spent a bunch of time working on my hair & makeup & i was wearing an outfit that i felt good about. she was watching me & playing with my makeup brushes ("this is real animal hair? really? can i have it?!") & i said, "do i look pretty tonight?" a horrified look crossed her face & she started backing slowly out of the bathroom. she told me once she was out of sight that she doesn't like to say nice things about anyone because it makes her uncomfortable. i walked downstairs & chris said, "ooo, doesn't mommy look so pretty?!" (thank goodness he's so nice or i might feel really bad about myself some days) she scrunched her face up & said, "i guess the color of her shirt is nice."

today brooke was having a rough morning getting out of the house & then got soaked between the car & church & was shivering & crying when we got inside. i offered to try to warm her up, but she said she's too big to sit on my lap in the little church seats. so we went to the back corner where there's a big ole grandma chair that's usually used by nursing moms & i held her & snuggled & rubbed her arms & legs until it felt like she had thawed. i gave her a massage to help her relax so that she could go to children's church & have fun in a little bit. i leaned down & whispered a line from the song we were all singing, "i'm falling in love with you." i meant it to be sweet, but she just wadded up her face and told me that i had stinky morning breath. i guess that's what a cheese bagle and dr pepper will do to a girl.

after we had lunch at taco bell, we were taking some food to chris at work. before getting out of the car, i bared my teeth & asked brooke if my teeth were okay. she said, "well, they're pretty yellow..." i told her that i was only wanting to know if i had food in them & she said, "then you should have specified what you really wanted to know!" sigh... 

this is just one more day in a string of days where i'm regularly cut down to size. there is no chance of me ever getting full of myself or feeling conceited because as soon as i did, i'm sure she'd tell me that my underwear is big enough to use as a pillow case or something equally friendly & i would be back down in the dirt where apparently i belong.