Daniel was extremely dissatisfied with the three leftover options I offered for dinner one night this week and decided to express that by throwing a fit. I reminded him that almost-six-year-olds do not scream and cry to try to get their way and told him I'd be happy to speak to him when he calmed down. He carried on for a bit, but ultimately, getting no reaction from me, decided to change tactics to "guilt." He slumped into the kitchen and announced, "Well, I guess I'll have to go find another family to live with since, it looks like I just don't matter to you anymore." *big sigh* "Don't really want to, but..." and slumped out of the room, head and shoulders hanging.

I was up to my elbows in muffin batter for Edward's birthday treat for school, but I immediately set it aside, caught up to his foot-dragging pace to the door, scooped him up and went to sit in a quiet space lit only by Will's small Christmas memory tree. D was writhing and wriggling, resisting my embrace, but I put my mouth right to his ear and calmly said, "Daniel, no one in the world matters more to me than you. Everything I do, my whole life is making sure you and your brother are taken care of. I love you times a million, zillion and nothing ever changes that. You are mad at me right now, and that's OK. Sometimes we get mad at each other, but it doesn't take away even a flea-sized amount of how much I love you."

As I spoke, he stopped squirming and just let himself go limp in my lap with his face buried in my neck. I rubbed his back for a bit as we tried to breathe calmly together. After a little while I asked if he was ready to get up, and he didn't answer but squeezed his arms around me tighter. So we stayed where we were.

Eventually we moved on, and, let the record show, he gobbled down a bowl of chili, which was one of the options so offensive mere minutes earlier, that he was thinking of leaving home. "Don't really want to, but..."

Sorry, buddy. Not every day can be a snowman pancake day!