mirror mirror
After we get Lina dressed in the morning, I usually plop her up on the bathroom counter so that she can brush her teeth. At this time I also wash her face and do something with her hair. I have found that I have almost no talent in the hair department, which has surprised even me. I have newfound respect (but that isn’t quite the right word) for the parents of children with perfectly symmetrical, well-designed hair control in place. I want to grow hers out such that it will be long and flowing (it is, after all, in my dog-year nature) and more importantly, that it can easily be pulled back in a scrunchie. My life is not lived without scrunchies, and neither shall hers be. And so I have proclaimed it.
Anyway, the bathroom-counter ritual is nothing new. The new part is that Miss Min has taken to collapsing in a sobbing heap, hands pressed against the mirror, writhing and screaming “NO! NOOOO! Mama! Mamaaaaaa!” upon being put up onto the counter. At first I thought that maybe I was hurting her in some way by lifting her up there. Then I thought maybe there was something wrong with one of her legs and sitting was hurting her. Then I wondered if maybe the other kids at school were making fun of her strange (yet creative!) hairdos. No, no, no. What could it be? It was more than annoying.
After a while, I noticed that she was definitely watching herself as she waxed dramatic on the bathroom counter. Then it became obvious. She was totally checking herself out as she cried. So I asked her one day. “Lina. Are you crying just so you can watch yourself? Do you like to watch yourself cry”
She didn’t take her eyes off her own reflection as she answered me, hands sliding downward on the surface of the mirror. “Ye-ee-ees!” she wailed.
I know that stuff like this is supposed to be developmentally appropriate. But holy hell. Now I’m all worried she’ll want to be an actress.