MELTDOWN

No, it wasn't me.

It was Lula Belle.

The other day I let her watch a movie on HBO called "Little Princess". For those of you not familiar with it, it is a remake of an old Shirley Temple movie. It is about a little girl whose very wealthy father is sent off to fight in WWII and sends her to boarding school with a headmistress who is jealous of her privileged life. The father goes missing and is presumed dead, so the girl is forced to become a servant at the school. An unknown wounded soldier (actually her father) moves in next door with a case of amnesia and eventually, the two are reunited and he regains his memory.

Nice story, right? Sure it is. To anyone but a four year old who misses her own daddy. I happened to be on the phone with CJ when the movie cam to an end and we had quite a struggle calming her down after that.

I should have learned my lesson.

Last evening Lula asked if she could watch that movie again. I said no because I felt that it would upset her. She promised me every way till Tuesday that it would not. She assured me that she knew what was going to happen this time and she was ready for it.

Why did I listen to a four year old regarding her ability to maintain her composure about such a sensitive subject????

Maybe I just wanted to believe she could do it. Maybe I wanted to help build her character by allowing her to experience feelings of empathy for the girl and not to think about her own situation. Maybe I was tired and feeling really crappy physically and wanted to plant her in front of the TV for 90 minutes.

Well, she couldn't do it. She did feel empathy for the girl, but certainly wasn't able to remove herself from the equation. The 90 minutes of relative peace that I gained was followed by 40 minutes of uncontrollable sobbing, screaming and pleading-mostly be me- for her to stop crying.

I handled it all well for in those situations, I have pretty much unlimited patience because the child was clearly hurting in a terrible way that is no fault of her own and it was not a result of poor behavior. She just missed her dad in much the same way that I was missing my own father several weeks back. I would have loved to have had the kind of meltdown that she had. To just let it all out and have someone there to hold me and reassure me that I'd see my daddy soon. Oh, that I could take her sadness away.

Finally I could think of nothing else to do but to call daddy. When I called he had been sleeping, but he woke up immediately when he heard what was going on and he did his very best to comfort her and calm her. I could tell it was very difficult for him to be so far away and hear that kind of anguish in his young daughter's voice.

All in all, I guess it is a good thing for CJ to know that his baby girl loves him that deeply and it is good for her to realize that daddy would do anything-including work 1200 miles away to make sure she has a good life. But that doesn't make the separation any easier or the pain any less real.

10. More. Days.