Parenting and Emotions

A friend's blog today spurred up me telling this story, if have a chance check out Stephy's rants, Get you adverbs here.

She inspires me because she as real as I hope to be on my blog...here's my comment/story from her post:


Crap we had a situation with this while at a wedding in AZ a few weeks ago. Aidyn was the flower girl. She had been praying for years to be a flower girl so this was a huge event for her.

Didn't start very good, basically everyone ignored her and she felt like it didn't matter whether she was there or not. She handled it alright, but it sucked. Then a the rehearsal dinner the couple overlooked getting her a gift...everyone else in the party got a gift, except for the ring bearer who was busy shoving chopsticks up his nose and never noticed. It killed me as a parent, I wanted to start a fight with the groom, run and buy Aidyn something and lie saying it was from the bride. Whatever I just wanted to stop the pain my daughter was in.

Instead we rode it out. Which killed me because I wasn't sure how it would end up, if my daughter would make a scene in front of everyone and leave the bride and groom with the memory of them disappointing her on the night of their rehearsal dinner.

She talked with her mom and I about it, then she let her other cousin in on her disappointment. After some tears, lots of hugs and snuggling, she was able to return to being a part of the party. Before you know it the bride was dressing her up in a mock wedding dress made of wrapping paper. She loved every minute of it.

As we were walking out together, of course she still had her wrapping paper dress on in this fine restaurant so she was the talk of the town, she said "This dress was better than any old gift." We had almost made it to the door, and her Great Uncle called her back into the main room where the rehearsal was. He had slid away and gotten her a gift.

I couldn't even go back into the room because I would have been a crying mess. By not cutting off her sadness, Aidyn had the opportunity to move beyond those emotions on her own, and then be blessed beyond her wildest dreams. Now that story is easy to tell because it worked out for the good. The two months she cried herself to sleep of the idea of divorce was much harder, and drawn out.

Being a parent sucks, you are so powerless and yet you are supposed to be the one with the answers. The problem is I have way too many questions myself to answer them for someone else.