It amazes me every day how much of parenting involves mustering up false confidence when you have absolutely no idea what you're doing.

    After bedtime this evening, my daughter (who is not yet four years old) was crying in her room.  When I went in to ask her what was wrong, she told me, "I just can't sleep because sometimes I don't feel like I'm special to the world."
    Now, I try very hard to give my girls all the tools they need to have healthy self esteem, so I was left wondering where in the world this came from.  Does she have a genetic predisposition for feelings of inadequacy?  Or does she have plans to one day be master of the universe and feels that she may be behind schedule on the global adoration?
    Who really knows how the mind of a child works, but I find myself intrigued.  The raw emotion in her voice when she said it was truly heartbreaking.  I felt powerless to help her... especially when she was not satisfied by my reminder of how special she is to me.   
    But, you know, I did the best I could to comfort her so she could settle down and go to sleep.  I made sure that she knew I heard her and cared how she was feeling.  Then I sent her dad in to give her an extra goodnight kiss or two.  Now I'm sitting here at my computer hoping that I have found the right motherly words to help this sensitive child get some rest.  And worrying that  I didn't.  And panicking at the thought that even if I did get it right, storing it in my memory bank to use for my younger daughter is worthless because she is an entirely different being.
  
    So, for any parent out there who comes across this (or anyone else who actually reads this far):
I think we're all faking it until we make it, and I think that's what our parents did as well.  I think it works, at least part of the time, if your heart is in the right place.  And I think we all need to remember that really small people can have really big thoughts.

CL