Humbling

Is there a support group for parents of "spirited" children? If not, there should be. No one in my life has ever made me grow, learn, step up, question myself and feel like a failure like this girl. She is full of life and spirit and difficulty and curiosity and power and adventure.

Yesterday we went grocery shopping and she didn't want to go. We get to the store and she refused to get out of the car. We finally get into the store and she starts stomping her feet and making a very loud whining noise. So, I don't know about you, but I feel like 6 is too old to be throwing a tantrum in public. I'm good with it up until about 4 and then I'm not such a fan. She knows this. So I tell her that if she continues to act up at the store, we're not going to be able to go out to dinner that night just the two of us (as we had planned). Then she decides to push the cart and makes up a really cute game of deciding which groceries are "girls", which ones are "boys" and which ones are the "naughty kids". Then she places them in the cart accordingly. The rest of the trip was the game (awesome) or stomping her feet (not awesome). I told her on a scale of 1 to 10 she was a 10 for wonderful and a 10 for a pain the kazoo. And it's freakin' true. She's either driving me CRAZY or we're having the best time ever. But she's giving me gray hair while we're at it.