Her emotions were to the extreme, which kept her very, very good or simply horrid. I imagine her parents, determined not to see the bad side, went out of their way to keep her good; while she, determined to keep them on their toes, went out of her way to do her bad things. Well, that little girl reminds me of myself, because my emotions can be to the extreme.

I am the first born child, and my parents catered to my every whim. So now when I am happy, I am very, very happy, and everybody knows it. My favorite song from my childhood is from the play Mary Poppins--I love to laugh. The first stanza of the song describes my laughter to a tee. "I love to laugh…Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha, loud and long and clear. I love to laugh, so everybody can hear. The more I laugh, the more I'm filled with glee, and the more with glee, the more I'm a merrier me." This song is my theme whenever I'm happy.

But, then I'm not always happy. When I'm mad, I'm very, very mad. It's very ironic though, because I mentioned to one of my children that I have to curb my temper. And they said, you don't have a temper, Mom. The innocence of youth. I don't yell and scream as I did as a child, but yes, the pot continues to boil every now and again.

The last line of one of my daughter's poems describes my anger exactly. The title of the poem is You Jerk. That gives you a hint of where I might be going. The last line reads "Stay out of my facial premises". If you know I'm mad at you, this is very, very good advise, because I will tell you exactly how I feel.  I don't mince my words.

And, when I'm not happy or mad, I'm very, very sad. As a child, I cried all of the time. My mother told me I cried at the drop of a hat. My father told me my tears flowed as easily as turning on a spicot. My grandmother told me to stop all of the crying or I would dry up all of the water in my body.

Finally, at about the age of 30, I decided to stop crying so much. When things happened, I just kept them inside of me. I was miserable, and it showed. Since I was a colic baby, crying was just a part of me. It didn't mean something was necessarily wrong, I just liked to cry. So, about three years ago, I decided to start crying again. And, it felt so good.

One morning after a good long night of cring, I felt so good. And, I wasn't really crying about anything in particular…just life. So, in the morning, I felt great. The only thing, I couldn't go to work. My eyes were almost swollen shut. And that's not the worst of it. The swelling did not go down for about 5 hours. Therefore, I decided to modify that old nursery rhyme to fit me. Let me see ….

There once was a girl, with a lot of pretty curls,right at the nap of her neck. When she was happy, she was very, very happy; when she was mad she was very, very mad; and when she was sad, she was a wreck.