Debbie Downer *whaWhAaaa*

Anyone who has ever ready my blog has to be familiar with "The Pinkone" and her many quirks by now.  She's bossy, she's bawdy, she's the very definition of precocious. She has been telling me for at least 2 years that as soon as she turns 6, she will officially be a grown up and will then be able to drink beer and get a tattoo, (the tattoo is of a rainbow pony in case you were wondering) and she is determined to be a Princess Doctor when she grows up. No, not a doctor that treats princesses, but a princess, who is also a doctor.

So now at the age of 5, her various idiosyncracies are even more present in my mind as her foray into the "real" world that is kindergarten looms ever closer.

Her father and I could never be termed "normal", thats for sure. He looks like "The Dude" and I have the mouth of a trucker and the ability to ramble on  nonsensical about my new love of cheese making at a moments notice. But how does the child of two such socially awkward parents and a myriad of socially awkward "aunts and uncles" stand a chance in navigating the waters of kindergarten society? I suppose we can just dress her in black, re-dye her hair and call her "artistic" .

Her latest weirdness is of a more serious nature, and a weirdness I am ashamed to say she got from me. She is SUPER negative, to the point of exhaustion.

She is the kid that can be given 43 scoops of ice cream and be sad because she wanted 44. Her adorably cherubic face is in a perpetual scowl. She refuses to share and says the entire trip was ruined if one kid looks at her funny.

One particularly memorable day found our little family traversing back from a trip to see a movie she wanted to see, stopping to get ice cream, and clutching our brand new build a bears, all in all, a preschoolers dream day. When asked "did you have a good day?"  Pinkone responded thusly: "No mom I did not."

"why is that baby?" says mommy

"because i wanted to go somewhere else and do this other thing then go see auntie and I wanted pink ice cream and daddy got me green"

"fuck" says mommy

SERIOUSLY? the pink vs green ice cream debate was about 2 seconds of the entire day and OF COURSE that's what Baby McSadness has to focus on as the defining moment that ruined her day.

I was a negative kid, and  I still can't point to where it came from but it made it VERY difficult for me to enjoy my childhood. I spent an entire trip to Disney Land bitching that I was hungry and afraid of ride.  When i think back on it, i can't remember why I was so miserable at the  HAPPIEST PLACE ON EARTH, and now as an adult I can only imagine how pissed off my parents were at the time. It makes it really difficult to want to spend time with your kids when they shit all over every activity, game, story and joke you engage in.

So how do we fix it? Is this just part of her personality? Will she always be overly critical and self deprecating? Can this penchant for negativity some how manifest itself into a positive attribute later in life?

All I know is that I'm still able to find the licorice flavored jelly bean in an entire bag of cherry and drag everyone down with me when i want to. The difference is that I don't want to anymore. I don't know if my childhood negativity made me a more interesting and well-rounded person as an adult. I just know I don't want my kid to be Captain Buzz Killington at every party and always feel shorted in some way, even when she isn't.

Any ideas folks?