A run for my money

This girl of mine...this skirt-wearing, frilly-loving, daredeviling tomboy of mine has given me a run for my money. I used to fear, knowing that any son of Matt's will likely try and kill himself lots of times before he becomes an adult. I never thought it might be a daughter!

Two weeks ago she tried poisening herself with poisen berries of some sort.

She pooed all over herself on the way to the bathroom where she began dry heaving. I heard her muffled cries for me and came in just to find she was ashen and sweaty, weak and lethargic. Before she began speaking inherently (and then collapsing onto her knees) she kept repeating "This is not a good day. This is not a good day."

Not knowing WHAT she had gotten into (they had gone blackcap picking), I kept thinking what it would be like for those to be the last words she ever spoke. Thankfully, poisen control said children won't DIE from ingesting poisen berries, I found out later.

Eventually, her eyes rolled forward again and she began to speak (and make sense) and by the end of the night, was requesting chicken soup and crackers.

The next week, she was doing tricks and flying by on her bike-turned-Aladdin-carpet and then kamikazied through the air and landed face-first on the gravel/concrete driveway. She came in with blood pouring from a small (but very deep) forehead wound and a goose-egg the size of Miney's fresh-laid eggs right smack dab inthe middle of her forehead.

I did what any self-respecting mother would do. I complimented her on her "gash" to which she replied "what does GASH mean?" and I told her the truth (no need to baby the truth in this house)...

"Oh-a gash means a cut SO deep and SO horrible that your brains are practically falling RIGHT out!"

That got her to chuckle (I don't know why...brains falling out seems quite a serious matter in MY book) and eventually, she got calmed down.

Until much later, that is, when I came upstairs to find her sniffling and qiuetly crying in front of the mirror. I knew where this was going.

"What's wrong, honey?"

"I just...sniff, sniff...ugh. I'm just So UGLY." she cried.

I got down on my knees, cupped her chin in my hands and said...

"You listen to me and you listen good." Her eyes were deep and brown and penetrating; anticipating the reassurance that she knew would be coming. "You are a beauty. You have been since the day you were born and you will be forevermore. God made you to look like you do and when He made you, He gave you pieces of HIM. You are RADIANT, just like Him. And this here?" fingers, gently tracing her gooseegg and tattoo band-aid "This here is just proof that not ONLY are you radiant and beautiful, but you are ALSO brave."

"BRAVE, Mama?" she questioned. should she dare hope?

"Yes, Brave. Anyone who sees your forehead will think 'my what a brave girl she is!' because what other five year old can speed so and do so many tricks on her bicycle?!?"

And the smile that chased the tears away told me that she knew it was so.