There was a little girl and she had a little curl

There was a little girl
and she had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead
And when she was good she was very very good
But when she was bad she was HORRID!

Old English Nursery Rhyme

(Have I already included this rhyme somewhere in this blog?? Memory? That went out the window with childbirth.) Anyway, the reason I've written this rhyme down is because it must, surely, have been written for my firstborn. I mean, just look at that curl (or curls I should say), and isn't this the face of a lovely little girl.....or not.

Yesterday is a case in point, a day filled with highs and lows, tantrums and tears, loveliness and laughter. Admittedly, this sounds like your average day with a three year old but yesterday was particularly extreme in emotions. Maya was tired, her mama was tired and we were driving each other up the wall. We are also far too similar and sometimes clash like crazy symbols.

Soooo, this is what happened when she was rather horrid. We were in a taxi on our way to the children's library (we go every week, but it's getting a bit silly now as we've taken out every decent book already so are having to go back to the ones we took out at the beginning again!). Maya suddenly noticed that Lily was wearing a few of her pink sparkly bangles (which she put on her little sister herself, but we won't mention that, Maya) and decided she wanted them back. Lily was having none of it, every time Maya reached for her wrist, Lily swiped at her. Maya was not amused and tried another tactic: yelling. I told her that yelling would get her nowhere and tried to ignore both her and the shifty glances of the taxi driver that blatantly read Hey, what's wrong with your kid? Can't you shut her up? No reasoning would work and by the time we got to the library, she climbed out of the car and flung herself to the ground (luckily there was - halleluljah - a pavement outside the children's library so at least this didn't take place on the road) and flailed about like an upside-down ladybird trying to turn itself around for a good five minutes. Every time I approached her to calm her down she tried to kick me. The taxi driver stood outside his vehicle staring at me as much as Maya before asking 'Madam, what is wrong with your daughter?' (What he was really asking was 'what is wrong with you to produce such a child, Madam?) I had no words to answer him so just gave him a withering look before scooping the demented ladybird off from the pavement and frog-marching her into the library. So, yes. Not our finest moment.

But this was her lovely, good moment: We were on the way back from school in the rickshaw and I was asking Maya all the normal questions about how school was and what she'd done etc etc when she suddenly piped up and said to me 'Mummy, when you're a big girl, I will take you to school if you like.' Sweet. But what made it funny was the way she said it....anyone who has a three year old or has had a three year old will know that kids of this age aren't always too articulate, particularly when they're feeling impassioned about what they're saying, which Maya often is. So this was how it came out: 'Mu-mu-mu-mu-mu-mummy, when when when you're when you're when when when when you're (at this point I'm nodding my head up and down like crazy, trying to encourage her to get to the point) a big girl, when when you're you're you're. Mummy. When you're a big girl Mummy, when you're a big girl I I I I.....okay, you get the picture. It was a rather protracted conversation but we got there in the end and when it was all out and expressed, that little curl in the middle of her forehead was positively glowing. Which is just as well, because I was still at that point blissfully unaware of how she'd fulfil the other half of the nursery rhyme prophecy just a few hours later!