Miss Woe...

Miss O can be one intense little ragamuff. She likes to wait until we turn out the light for bed to work herself into a lather about, whatever. Sometimes she'll cry because she misses her old friends the Montessori she went to last year. Sometimes she'll cry because she misses her "friends" from the pre-school we sent her to that SHE HATED and that SMELLED LIKE PEE. It doesn't really matter -- she could cry about eggs. It's just the physical release of flipping her lid that she needs to go through before settling in for the night.

Tonight it went like this:

MISS O: [starting to cry] I never used my baby voice at Montessori. But now, sometimes, I use it. And I don't know why!

ME: Miss O, you're in control of the voices that you use. If you don't want to use a baby voice, just don't use it.

MISS O: [getting weepy] But I CAN'T control it. It just comes out. I open my mouth and it comes out on its own. It's like a germ that's inside me. The germ controls the voice.

ME: [slightly freaked out by her imagery] Of course you can control it. You just say to yourself, "Self, I don't want to speak in a baby voice. I want to speak in my normal Miss O voice."

MISS O: [now sobbing and pissed]You don't understand! It's the germ!

And it went on and on, until I pretended to pull the germ from her bellybutton and put it in my pocket. Then I told her that I was going to fart on it and it was going to disappear in a wisp of stinky smoke. And then she laughed and that was it. And this happens once or twice a week, usually when she's tired. It can only be defused by tickling or fart jokes.

Sometimes it starts while we're still in the bathroom, brushing her teeth. That's classic, because she loves to watch herself cry in the mirror. She'll just stand there, staring, as she cries harder and harder, turning her head to see how she looks from different angles. It's fucking bizarre. If she were brushing her hair while sobbing and staring in the mirror, she'd be just like Marcia Brady when she lost the part of Juliet in the school play. I think it was Episode 52: "Juliet is the Sun," if you're keeping track.

Now there is that off chance that she's some sort of empath, and she's sensing the years and years of pent up emotions, locked in the dessicated husk that is my psychic being, and she's attempting to purge this angst from my very core.

But I'm pretty sure she's just Miss O: ragamuff extraordinaire.