“Sugar and spice and everything nice, that’s what little girls are made of.” 

What this particular nursery rhyme fails to mention is that the ratio of sugar to spice is not necessarily even. In Josie’s case, the amount of spice seems to be greater than the sugar, and not in a pleasing to the palate kind of way.

A few weeks ago, after multiple meltdowns and power struggles with my darling 4-year-old dictator wannabe daughter, I called my best friend. I told her about the series of trials Josie and I had been through because of her strong dislike of not getting her way and her current style of expressing it through crying and screaming and stomping. 

I told her that I thought I was mentally and emotionally prepared to hear “I don’t love you”, “You’re not a good mom”, and/or “I hate you” come out of her mouth, because she’s been informing me that I’m not nice for some time now. (My personal favorite is when she tells me, “I’m so mad to you right now.”) When she says those things, I take it as a compliment that I’m doing a good job in being a mom. But when she actually said/screamed “I don’t love you” in a fit of rage (I wouldn’t let her eat an entire ginormous cupcake because it was getting too close to bedtime…I know, I’m horrible), it cut right through the ol’ mom heart.

After listening to me unload about my daughter’s behavior, my best friend told me that while it’s hard right now, this strong-willed, stubborn, argumentative behavior is going to lead her to be a confident and assertive woman in the end. Hearing this wasn’t new to me because we’ve talked about countless times before with her own oldest daughter as well as with Josie. 

But this time it really didn’t help me to feel better. This is what I text my best friend the next morning:

“…I want her to be kind. I want kindness and compassion and respect to be the traits that are ingrained in her. It’s not to say I want her to be timid and a doormat and submissive…I want her to be confident and assertive but know how to be those things with kindness, compassion, and respect. And I’m seeing that the struggle to guide her to that path is going to be harder than I thought.”

In her wisdom, she reminded me that this whole parenting thing is a marathon, not a sprint, and I’ll get glimmers that I’m succeeding every now and then along the way.

The thing is, Josie really is kind and sweet and compassionate. She truly is. It’s just that she typically shows that side of her to others – Moses, friends, cousins, strangers. I usually get the other side, and that’s hard on me. In fact, it gets downright exhausting. 

Yesterday I was having a hard time after a long week (okay, weeks) and started crying. As I sat on the bed crying, she came over and rubbed my arm and said, “It’s okay, Mom.” When I started crying even harder because I felt so bad that my 4-year-old was having to console me, she left the room and came back carrying one of her favorite blankets. She gently put it around my shoulders and said, “There. That’ll help you feel better.” Then she found a book and some pictures of her to help me feel better, too.

That’s my daughter. She tests my patience, doesn’t listen, and defies me on a regular basis. And when I need it the most, she gives me the gift of a glimmer of her kindness and compassion directed at me. Maybe her ratio of sugar to spice is pretty even after all.

Oh, and remember that cupcake? When she tried it the next day, she didn’t even like it.