I feel a little bit unprepared to raise a daughter.

I know this sounds strange, being female myself you’d think this would come naturally.

No.

Raising a daughter is baffling. 

Let me give you two situations…both of which happened today.

This morning I tried to get the Princess ready for preschool.

Usually she is fairly compliant when it comes to getting dressed. Sure she has her favorite clothes, but she’s fairly easy going.

I held up a dress and told her it was time to get dressed. I figured that since she wears dresses to church and she wears dress up dresses she’d be cool with a dress and leggings for school.

Nope.

She screamed, tried to rip the dress off, and threw herself on the ground crying.

The tears stopped as a soon as the dress was removed.

I assumed it was just that dress so we tried another one.

Keep in mind these are navy blue and striped dressed and dresses with dinosaurs, we’re not going for anything wild here.

Same reaction, screaming, crying, just hysterical.

Exasperated I told her to go pick out her own clothes.

She came back with jeans and a t-shirt.

Then she very calmly let me dress her and moved on her way.

She’s not even 2.

Then…

A few hours later I tried to take her to Costco on our way to get her brother from school.

She wanted to watch Frozen, I said no, she made herself throw up.

We had to skip Costco, turn around, go home and find more jeans and a t-shirt, clean the carseat, and rush to preschool pickup.

Just in case it wasn’t emphasized enough… she’s not even 2.

I can’t even imagine what kind of emotional outbursts are going to take place when she’s 13.

I’m terrified.

Like shaking in my boots, don’t look down, nightmares all night terrified.

Boys are.terrifying in their own way… I mean AsthmaMan runs into traffic, tries to slash people with imaginary weapons, and eats random things he finds, but we’ve never had a sobbing fit over clothes…

But this girl, man… I’m not sure I can deal with the emotion.

I like to think of myself as a fairly steady person, sure there are things that rile me up… but throw myself on the floor over a dress? I can’t even wrap my head around that one.

I guess it’s a good thing she’s almost 2 and not 14… we both have time to learn, grow, and navigate life with a girl.