My Almost-Not-Quite Big Girl

I had to disappoint my girl today... Something she has been long anticipating with much pleasure is not going to work out this year. She has to wait another year. She took it well and very quietly. She trusts us.

I knew she would....

For all her drama-- and I know I complain about it a lot-- she is actually a pretty happy-go-lucky kid. All the bluster and fluster, all the brouhaha is but a surface storm and tempest. Underneath all that she's so mature, so still, so stable. Like her daddy. Her tears and hysterical laughter are momentary and fickle, but my Sofi-Chicken is such a good girl underneath all that.

And herein lies my hurt today. The very silence and calm that commends her response lets me know how deep in the disappointment may lie. I no longer claim to understand every nuance of her moods and thoughts, but I suspect that this one stuck in.

But I know, too, that she'll soldier on and she might throw a fit tonight about something trivial like bedtime, or how she's The Only One Who Can't whatever, but that will be all we'll see of the little girl inside who got her feelings hurt and was soso disappointed this afternoon.

Growing up hurts.