Drama is her middle name

My little girl is nothing like me when I was her age. If I got upset, my chin would quiver and my eyes would water, but if I wanted to let out a hardcore crying spell, I’d likely go find a private place to release my emotions; preferably my bedroom, with the door shut, leaking tears into my pillow.

She is the total opposite. She tends to have a flair for the dramatic with her emotional outbursts.

The other night, she lost her second tooth which I erroneously believed was not a big deal seeing as how this has happened once already and she made five bucks off the transaction. I was wrong.

She wouldn’t let us touch it, of course, and I didn’t pursue the matter. I told her to go look in the mirror and wiggle it a little. The tooth fell out of her mouth and we applauded her accomplishment, but we didn’t factor in the amount of bleeding that would be involved.

For some reason, there was a lot of blood. She wouldn’t stop assessing it. Her face contorted into extreme concern for her own well-being and we tried to reassure her that it would stop, but she kept pacing about the house crying inconsolably and drooling because she refused to swallow.

This went on for about a half an hour until she finally went to bed.

I slipped two dollars under her pillow before I left for work the next morning and she told her daddy that you’re supposed to get two dollars for your second tooth.

A few nights later, I told her to get in the bath. She was rattling around in the toys when I heard her yell and then she came running down the hallway stark naked.

I couldn’t understand most of what she said until one word popped out of her mouth, “SPIDER!”

I hate spiders. I’m a big chicken when I see them because they really creep me out, but I try to act tough in front of the kids so I told her to show me where it was.

She was real jittery when we got close to the bathroom. It would’ve been the perfect moment to freak her out by tickling the back of her leg, but I refrained from psychologically scarring her forever. Sometimes I’m a good mom.

She pointed to the toy closet. I asked how big it was and she said “Medium.” That gave me nothing to go on.

My son brought me one of my work shoes which have all these gaps in the soles and I knew it wouldn’t be very helpful. Flip flops are the best spider killers, but last week, I was able to eradicate one with the toilet plunger. It was oddly satisfying.

I dug around in the toy basket while my bowels loosened out of anticipated terror when I spied a shriveled tiny dead spider on the floor.

I called her in to look at it and asked if this was the medium-sized arachnid she saw. She acknowledged that this was indeed the spider that attacked her. I did a mental eye roll and tried to remember that she is only six.

A piece of tissue paper was all that was required to clear the area of the nuisance, much to my relief. I can’t believe that I got my heart racing for that, but I still saved the day in her eyes so it was worth it.