I woke Ruby this morning, got her dressed and then told her that I needed to rinse her hair in the sink so that I could poof it out a bit. Revitalize it. She started to cry a really slow, dramatic cry and continued until we had her head turned upside down under the faucet. At that point she only whimpered.

When she was all done with a head band in place—two minutes later—she ate her breakfast and watched a little Noggin. I passed through the room on one of my many trips taken while getting ready to leave, and stopped to tell her how brave she was to let me wet her hair (which was completely disingenuous because there is nothing brave about getting water on your hair and she was mostly crying for effect, but I figured a little positive reinforcement would bode well for tomorrow and anyway, it couldn’t hurt to take her seriously).

“You did such a good job letting me rinse your hair, Ruby.”

“I cried,” she said.

“Yes, you did. But you pulled it together and your hair looks great.”

“I cried because I was really stressed out, Mama.”

Wha…??? “You were stressed out, honey?” I tried not to laugh but it was sort of adorable.

“Yes. And what I wanted you to say was, ‘Ruby! I love you!’”

“Well I didn’t know that. I thought you wanted me to say that less because I say it so much.”

“No, I don’t want you to stop saying that because it makes me sad and it really stresses me out.”