Being Hated Isn't So Bad

A little bit about me... I have never really had one best friend.  There are people from all parts of my life that are my best friends.  I can't say that I like Kim more than Sarah or Natalie more than Angela, but they don't have the same place in my life.  I think a great friend is someone you can tell poo stories to and they don't judge you.

Last night I had one of them sleep over because her husband was out of town.  The great thing is that Tom gets along with all my friends and doesn't mind joining us for our sleepover movie and chatting.  Don't get me wrong, it's not an episode of Sister Wives (although if I had to be a sister wife I would choose this friend to be one of them with me -- but no sleeping with my husband).

She has a little girl Morgan's age so they got to play.  My house is a complete mess.  And I haven't had time to blog for days (not just from this).  We had a good time.

Then this morning after our friends left Morgan told me she hates me.  This is how I handled it.  I will probably get reamed by the child psychologists out there but all I can say is that this is my first time as a mom and I have no idea what I'm doing.

As I was doing Morgan's hair things weren't going too poorly (there have been harder times).  She got in trouble for spraying me after I asked her three times not to, but nothing unusual.  Then she said, "I hate you."

I said, "what did you say?" (knowing full well what she said).

She repeated it.

I said, "Morgan, we do not hate people.  Especially mommy, daddy, or Sophie.  We. Do. Not. Hate. People." Then I asked her why she says hates me.

She couldn't answer.  I'm sure she just heard it somewhere and decided to try it out on me.  (And I remained calm the whole time, by the way).

Then I told her I would help her pack her suitcase and she could go live with her teacher (she would have jumped on it if I said she could live with grandma).

She said she didn't want to.

This happened a few times.  I was trying to help her understand that she doesn't have it too bad here with me.

The last time I told her I would help her pack she started crying and said that she wants to stay here and live with me.

I asked her why she didn't want to go live with Mrs. Kelly.

She said, "because she's not my mommy."

It melted my heart.  I get to be a mommy.  I'm so lucky.  I'm not perfect.  I don't know what I'm doing.  But I get to try.  I make mistakes every day.  I feel guilty almost every day.  I would not change this opportunity for anything, even when my 3-year-old says she hates me.  I'm her mommy!!!