Heartbreaker

Oh, Maria.  She broke my heart today.  We went to the zoo and she got her face painted - of course she got a VERY complicated face painting, it was called Butterfly Swirl and it was her whole damned face. She lay there, very still with her head back, while the girl did her painting and then she said to me, 'do you want glitter for a dollar?' and Maria opened her eyes and cut them at me and nodded.  Ha, so I said sure.  It was like FIFTEEN dollars but I swear, it made her so happy and it should last for six months, ha!  It was a LOT of makeup.  Anyway, she said she wanted to not take a bath tonight so the makeup would stay for the party she's going to tomorrow and we said okay.  But this afternoon, she was playing at a friend's house and she came TEARING into the house, crying and crying.  I said what is WRONG? and she said LOOK WHAT I DONE!  LOOOOOK WHHAAAAAT I DOOOOONE!, she showed me her black hands and it was then I realized that she must have forgotten she had that whole face painted and just rubbed the heck out of her face.  I felt so bad, she was really upset.  So I said, don't worry!  Come here and let me clean your hands and then we'll look in the mirror, it's fine.  I think she saw all that black makeup on her face and thought it was all ruined.  But we cleaned her up and I blew her tears away (jeez, the things I do!) and we looked in the mirror and she took a deep breath and she said "okay, Mommy, I think it's okay.  Thanks".  And she ran back out the door.  She is a crazy thing but I love her so much, she breaks my heart at the same time that it is swelling with pride.