A Tragedy Unfolds In Gloucester

As you can see from the above photos, it was river city in Gloucester tonight. Olivia was downright inconsolable. I managed to capture the raw emotion of the moment on film, so to speak, and I hope these images don't make you break out into tears. You see, here it is, on the eve of Thanksgiving with so much to be thankful for, and Olivia is sad. Really, really sad. I'm not sure what exactly made her so sad, whether it was Julie leaving with all the other girls to go to a movie or whether it was the prospect of staying at home with four brothers and Dad. Maybe a combination of the two, perhaps? I think it was mainly Julie leaving, because as soon as she caught wind that her mama was going somewhere without her, the pity party started in full.

What was fairly remarkable was that right after I snapped these photos I asked her if she'd like to see them. "Yeah!" she said, somewhat giddily, the tears and mournful expressions disappearing in what I would almost call `glee.' As soon as she was done viewing herself in such a pathetic, sad and sorrowful state, Olivia promptly resumed her former pathetic, sad and sorrowful state and started crying again. It's an amazing ability to be able to turn on and off the tears like that. Is it genetic? A learned trait? A product of the immediate environment? Further study should shed some light on it. And I don't know how to break this to my sweet Olivia, but there may be plenty more tears ahead. There's the tears for the dreaded "Bad Hair Day" and tears for the "These Jeans Make Me Look Fat" moment and, more immediately, tears for the "Ezra Isn't Sharing" frustrations and tears for the "I Don't Want To Ride In My Car Seat" fit and the "I Want To Sit In A Booster Seat" kerfuffle and even tears for the "I Don't Want My Diaper Changed" act up. Now the diaper thing always throws me. I always think, `Girl, do you smell yourself? I'm going to get fined by the DEQ for violating odor pollution standards!' The emotional roller coaster of a 2-year-old is almost too much sometimes. Throw in the emotions of 8 eight other siblings living at home and things can periodically get out of whack. Not that it makes me want to cry or anything.