The shrinking, spinning heart.

We're just saying goodnight to Madeleine when she says, quite calmly and sweetly, "I don't like you, Mama." I feel that little clench of dismay around my heart but squelch it. I know she's looking for a reaction, so I don't give her one. Instead I lean in and give her a hug. "I love you, Madeleine. Goodnight."

She wiggles, kicks her feet a little. "But I don't LIKE you," she says in that same sweet tone. She turns to Wayland. "I don't like you either, Daddy." You'd think she was telling us how much she loves us based on her tone, but no. "I really don't like you."

Our faces are drawn and weary, and even though I know she doesn't mean what she's saying it still hurts. "I'm sorry to hear that, Mad, because I love you so so much," I tell her. "Goodnight." Wayland kisses her forehead and she hugs him tight. "I don't like you, Daddy," she says again.

We look at each other with the same blankness, the supreme effort of trying to wipe emotion from our faces and failing: we're stressed, tired of her antics, more than a little concerned. We leave the room.

She's running out of her room a few minutes later. She hurls herself into my lap. "I'm sorry I said that," she says. "I DO like you."

"I know you do," I say. "So WHY do you say things like that?"

I'm surprised when she answers. "It's my heart," she tells me. "My heart sometimes goes around and around like this" -- she whirls her fist in a circle -- "and it gets really tiny and it doesn't look like my heart anymore. That's when I get wild. But then it calms down like this" -- she slows the whirl of her fist -- "and then it's like my heart again, and that's when I feel sorry."

I give her a hug, and as she snuggles close against me, Wayland and I make eye contact. We're both...flummoxed. I appreciate her description but worry about all that turbulence inside her. "Thank you for telling me that," I finally tell her. "That was a really good way to explain how you feel when you start behaving that way. But next time you heart starts spinning and getting smaller, do you think you could tell me that's happening? I'd like it if we could find a way to help it stop spinning before you get too wild and say hurtful things to the people you love, Mad. Do you think we could work together on that?"

She nods and then snuggles in closer.

I don't know. I can't think of the right way to end this. I have no answers, no deeper meaning, but I wanted to write about it because I so appreciate the simple strength of the right words, the way even a 4-year-old can feel things and express them so perfectly. We've all been there, haven't we? Our hearts shrinking and growing, pounding and trembling, felt feelings overcome us in such a way that we don't even feel like ourselves anymore. I want to say: I understand you, Mad, and I see your heart: It's bigger and stronger than you even know.