I have been Xed out!

On Thursday I told the kids all individually, as it worked out that way, that we would be going to Mamaw's house for her birthday on Friday evening. When I told Caroline she was all excited, until I added that she had to wear a dress. Well, I just deflated her balloon then! She got upset, refused to put one on and stomped off. I continued to do laundry as I had been when we were having this conversation. A little while later, Caroline returns with this note to me. She looks up at me with her big hazel eyes and hands me the note, not saying one word. I immediately recognize that it is her attempt at cutting out a heart and that it is folded up. I assume it is an apology note. But not so. I open it to find THIS!!!

Let me decypher the photo for you. First it is a heart shaped blue paper. She cut it out herself. Second, the person on the left is clearly me. I have long hair, a smile on my face and I am wearing a dress and shoes. The man on the right is clearly a man, wearing pants. It is Kenneth. We can tell by the smile on his face the short, small head and the ONE eye!! To a stranger it would look like I am married to a cyclopse crossed with Edward Scissorhands but as I am an expert at analyzing Caroline's artwork it is clearly Kenneth. Notice we are holding hands too. Third, the person (that would be me) is Xed out! See the big X cutting through my body? Yup, I have been Xed out. Kenneth has a check by his picture. He is still okay in her book.

Now, I stood there looking at it and looking at her looking at me with her big hazel eyes, and I pondered what I should do. Clearly she was waiting for a reaction and the longer I stood there she was showing signs that maybe she would get into trouble for this. But she was standing her ground. NO DRESS!

So what would you do in this situation? would you start yelling at her? Would you get down on her level and explain to her why it was important for her to wear a dress to the party? Would you just hand the note back and tell her you were not accepting a note like this?

All of those options came to mind. But I chose option number 4. CRY. Yup, cry. I started to cry and I hoped and prayed I could pull it off and actually make some tears. It happened I truly started crying and making tears. She didn't know what to do. She stood there for a minute looking up at me and then she hugged me. And then she told me that she was sorry. I told her that I was so upset and sad because I would never ever ever X her out of my heart and that I was so upset that she could so easily X me out of hers. That no matter how mad she made me or how bad she was she was never Xed out of my heart and that I would love her always (remind me of this conversation when she is caught skipping curfew with a boyfriend when she is a teenager okay?) and that I was so sad and hurt that just because it was Mamaw's birthday and we were going to a party and that I told her that she had to wear a dress that she could just X me out.

She told me then that she still loved me but she wasn't going to wear the dress.