I don’t know what happens to my brain from the moment I leave a play group with Chloe and swear I will never go back to the following week when I am parking my mini-van front and centre so she can finish insulting the kids she missed a week earlier.

I have three daughters, each with their own personality, favourite foods, tolerance for pain, mild t.v. interest to zombie obsession and everyone insists life would be boring if all three were the same. Agreed. I just wonder if life wouldn’t be a little less stressful though if Chloe didn’t always have to find a problem where no problem exists (yet) or pick a fight or say something unthinkable or pass gas and blame me.

The other day, Chloe and I were sitting at a play doh/pumpkin station at play group. We were the first and only ones at this table so naturally when the next child stumbles upon our masterpiece, they are going to want to experience the magic themselves and/or eat what’s left of the play doh.

There’s an unwritten, universal rule at public play doh centres that when a new child arrives on scene, the child (depending on age) or acting supervisor (Mom) takes the giant ball and divides it into two, sharing with the new player. This exercise is then repeated for all subsequent children until each child has one crumb of play doh with which to eat, cram inside a caregiver’s eardrum or simply donate back to the communal, germy ball.

My daughter has no interest or understanding of sharing her play doh and I look forward to these outings to force her to give up what she feels is rightfully hers so she can call people names and throw a fit in public to teach her one of life’s important lessons, everybody plays or nobody plays.

Chloe doesn’t just pound her fist into the doughy ball, making an unfortunate, obscene middle finger imprint, she goes right for the jugular. The sweet little girl who happened upon our mountain of doh had a natural scowl on her face. What I mean by that is some people when they aren’t smiling have what appears to be a frown as their regular, relaxed expression. Please see my aforementioned note about how boring life would be if we were all the same.

Chloe saw an opportunity to exploit the frown and attempt to monopolize the giant ball simultaneously and said loudly, “What’s wrong with her face! I don’t want to play with her!”

The girl scowled (I think) but continued sitting opposite my daughter. This was going to be interesting.

Of course I took the ball of play doh, split it rather unevenly giving the new kid who had just been insulted and had refused to budge a far bigger piece than my daughter who deserved two nostril sized plugs.

She repeated, “What’s wrong with her face?” I heard people snickering.

Me: There is nothing wrong with her face, she is watching what you’re making with play doh and wants to try some too.

Chloe: Oh, well would she like this rolling pin too?

It wasn’t sarcasm it was a genuine offer of an olive branch (made entirely from play doh).

I need to stop trying to figure out this kid’s personality, her swings from one extreme to the next and let her figure out some things on her own.

I’m glad the little girl stayed at our table. I’m glad the kids shared a rolling pin because I feared I was moments away from hitting myself in the head with it to draw attention away from what I thought might unfold.

I learned a lesson myself too. As adults, we take things personally and we hold grudges. If someone had asked what was wrong with my face, I might have force fed them the play doh, the pumpkin and the rolling pin may have wound up in the orifice of my choosing before I sobbed the entire way home.

Chloe’s question was an honest one. Why is this kid different than me? When she realized she was different because none of us can be exactly the same, that was all she needed and everyone could carry on as friends.

She also learned there is only one Chloe, but there’s lots of play doh to go around.