When you can't find the right words ....

Bath time. Daughter was done, but still in the bathroom: touching things, asking questions, typical 5-year-old things. Nothing major, and typical of Daughter. Son was goofing around as I was getting him into bath: again, nothing major, and completely typical of Son.

Dad (me) is going with the "it was a brutally hot day" excuse. I become a little grouchy with Daughter and asked her to leave, and closed the door behind her. I could have been more patient.

Later that same evening, Daughter comes out with the following drawing. There she is, on the left, with a sad face. Dad and Son on the right, separated from Daughter by a door. Notice the angry expression on Daddy. Mommy is nearby, in Daughter's words, "trying to help."

I was feeling pretty crummy about the whole situation, but I managed to come up with "Thank you for sharing your feelings this way with my, Sweetheart. I'm sorry I hurt your feelings." This apparently was the right thing to say, because Daughter proceeded to change the frowns into smiles! (You might have to click to see the larger version because of the light pink she used for this.) I think she wasn't sure how to draw the door opening, so she gave it a smile-face too. There's a heart too, and I think the line shows us all holding hands.

Suddenly I felt a lot better.