sweet or sour?

10 year old girls may be the most confusing creatures on the planet.

All within the span of 5 days I have seen major extremes from mine. 

First the sour...

Driving home from soccer practice the other night, things were getting a little loud in the car. Snow was falling and traffic was crawling;I was trying to concentrate on not getting plowed into. Emma was singing, obnoxiously, on purpose. Evan was whining about the singing. She would not stop. So I turned off the radio in order to have one less distraction. At this point, Emma lost her mind and began screaming at me to" turn the radio on right now. I said NOW. Turn it on now.NOW! NOW! NOW!"

Because I am attempting to be a calm and rational rather than emotional person I ignored the screaming. I apologized to Evan for having to endure the torturous caterwauling. She continued to scream for the entire drive home, without pausing to breathe. I wanted to stuff my fist down her throat, or shake her until she stopped, but I just kept driving. (If ever a moment called for duct tape!) I should get a medal for my restraint, honestly. I'm sure heinous acts have been commited for far less bs than I put up with on that drive home.

Now the sweet...

Em asked if I would take her up to Target so that she could buy, with her own money, Valentine's Day gifts for the kindergarden class she is the safety for. She had some ideas of what sort of thing she was looking for. And she was armed with a catalog from Oriental Trading Company, chock full of useless crap in bright colors. But she didn't want to pay s&h. I was skeptical that Target would have what she was looking for. I should know by now not to doubt Target. They had tons of stuff to chose from! She ended up buying little play-doh containers, heart stickers with googly eyes, mini-heart stampers, & drawstring gift bags. I threw in a package of candy as a donation.

The end result- 23 perfect little bags. She wasn't asked to make these, but I wouldn't be surprised if they end up being the kids' favorite treats.

So why all the extremes? If you would have asked me Wednesday night, I would have traded her for a sack of nickels. Then today, she pulls off this sweet gesture, with no prompting or encouragement from her friends. It was the sweetest thing, and I'm so proud.

She makes my head hurt.

FYI- we watched Away From Her last night. It was truly a heartbreaking movie. I would be surprised if Julie Christie doesn't win the Oscar. Not that I have seen any of the other nominated performances; her's was just stellar. Go rent it ASAP.

Tomorrow!