Do As I Say, Not As I Do

Mila is, in many ways, the most charming Tiny Human that has ever lived. There's just that one thing - it is impossible to distinguish between her version of injured and angry. If she trips and scrapes a knee, falls over while jumping on the trampoline, smashes into her sister's elbow while walking, whatever. She will react exactly the same regardless of whether she is really hurt or just plain pissed off about whatever just happened.

It's frustrating.

Whenever it happens, she launches into tears and yelling, but I don't know what to do. There's a big difference in how I think I should handle a physical injury versus an ego injury, but not being able to tell them apart leaves me saying, "You're going to have to use your words" a WHOLE lot. Mostly I've decided that if she wants help when actually hurt, she's going to have to change up her reaction so I know to get involved. In other words, she can wallow in her misery if she's angry.

It works out.

Tonight, though, things went a bit different. It was the evening of walking straight into her sister's elbow because my children are very talented. A simple walk around the neighborhood can result in someone losing an eye. We're almost proud of that. Mila and Alexis were both happily walking along, but then Mila decided she needed to twirl her dress, and when she resumed walking forward, she walked squarely into Alexis' elbow.

Nobody was happy for a minute or ten.

Mila started yelling and carry on about all sorts of things. She was WORKED UP, but I still couldn't tell you whether she was angry or hurt. Seriously, I have no idea. I told her as much, and then topped off the sentence with, "It doesn't do any good to be angry about things that happened in the past if you don't do something to make tomorrow better."

And then I wallowed in my wise words because ... yeah. It's time to get on that.