It's Just Emotion Taking Me Over

Rachel recently had the following homework assignment. She had to draw something that made her happy, something that made her sad, something that made her angry and something that made her scared.

I had had an absolutely horrible day at work and even though I had been home several hours, I had not been able to shake it. Still, I tried to focus on the task at hand. After all, I had not had much time recently with Rebecca or Rachel, which probably added to my dark cloud.

"What makes you happy?" I asked my daughter.

"Being with you," she replied.

I melted. What bad day?

I looked at her illustration, a bit puzzled by what I saw.

"Where am I?" I asked.

"Under the blanket," she answered. All that stuck out from the blanket was my head. She then drew three well-placed hairs, one left, one right, one center. I laughed inwardly.

"What makes you sad?" I asked her. Bless her little heart, she could not think of one thing that made her sad. May she always feel that way!

"What makes you angry?" I continued.

"Wearing my eyepatch," was the not too surprising answer. Rachel cannot stand having to wear that eyepatch. She has one eye weaker than the other and the eyepatch forces her to use the weaker eye. Rachel also doesn't like getting her hair washed. A couple of days earlier,I asked her whether she wanted me to put on her eyepatch or wash her hair. "Wash my hair" was the response. "Wow! She must really hate that eyepatch" I thought.

"What makes you scared?" I asked, fully expecting the answer to be insects.

"Crows" was the response.

Crows?

It was only later that I learned she and her mom had a conversation earlier that day about a huge bird that startled Rachel. Rebecca had explained it was a crow and that they could be mean sometimes.

Ah, so that's where that came from!

Still, I'm what makes her happy. I'm still smiling, days later.