Sweet, And Not So Sweet

Sweet:

Yesterday when I brought Rebecca into school her teacher went out of her way to tell me how much she enjoys having Rebecca in the class, and especially about how funny and smart she is. Sensing the attention, Rebecca decided to ingratiate herself further by coming over to me and kissing my belly goodbye ("I want to give the baby a kiss!") to which her teacher said, "I have never seen anything so sweet in my whole life!"

Not Sweet:

I got a call from Rebecca's best friend's mom last night. Apparently, Rebecca has been telling her friend Amelia that she will only be her friend if she wears a certain pair of shoes. So yesterday Amelia arrived in the requested pair of shoes, presented herself to Rebecca, and Rebecca turned away from her saying, "I still don't want to play with you!" Which, as you might imagine, left poor Amelia crushed. So this morning before school I had to give Rebecca the lecture entitled We Do Not Discriminate on the Basis of Footwear or Other Articles of Clothing. I did get her to acknowledge that if her friend did not play with her because of what shoes she was wearing, she would feel bad. However she kept trying to argue the specific example with me, as if she has some strange rationale in her head that while yes, we should not choose our friends on the basis of footwear, in this *particular case* there are mitigating factors. I am not exactly sure how the Footwear Drama is going to play out today... All I can say is, if preschool involves this much drama, I can't wait for middle school...