She is still there. Under the whiny, bossy, nearly 4-year old, my sweet daughter still exists.

Not that I have ever stopped, or ever will stop, loving her. But let’s just say that there have been many days lately that I just don’t “like” the way she has been acting and we have butted heads. Hard. Continually. She has been taking pretty much any opportunity to defy me, argue with me, and flat out disobey me. I find this far more exhausting than physically running after A. all day long.

Yesterday I took a step back, reminded myself she is really still so little and I really tried to put myself in her shoes. In the past few months, she has been thrust into this “big girl/big sister” role, while her sister has been getting a lot of attention due to her cranky clingyness. I think E. is a little nervous about moving…again, and she knows that big changes are in the near future with all of this preschool talk. Yeah, that is a lot resting on her little size 4T shoulders.

So we had a “date day”. She decided everything we did. And it was just E. and Mommy. I must say I think I enjoyed it as much, if not more, than she did. We saw a movie, had dinner, walked around a few shops, and she picked out her birthday decorations. (Princesses, of course.) And she was perfectly behaved. She was more than perfect – we talked and laughed and took silly (really poor quality) photo booth pictures. It was so much fun, and not one grumpy word was exchanged.

As we sat snuggling in the movie theater, she sighed and put her head on my shoulder and said, “I love you, Mommy,” and my heart soared.

I think she needed to reconnect as much as I did.