Earlier this evening, as I pulled into the parking lot of a shopping center, Mia informed me that the class pictures had been sent home, and  that hers was "the worst one."

To my discredit, my first reaction was irritation. We had just finished a conversation in which she described being bullied by her cousin. Every time I pressed her for details, though, the story changed dramatically. It ended with my saying, curtly, "Well I don't know what happened today, Mia. You don't seem to be able to tell me the truth about it." She got quiet. I know she has troubles with her cousin, and it frustrates me that I can't help her with them -- and it frustrates me even more when I can't figure out exactly what they are.

So that was the mood when she offered up her opinion of her own picture in the group class photo. I sighed. "Oh come on, Mia." We've been working with maintaining a positive self-image, especially through choosing the words we use to describe ourselves more carefully. (I need this as much as she does.) She's been making great strides, and my first thought was that this was a regression into bad habits. I just didn't have any patience for it today.

So she retrieved the picture from her Hello Kitty backpack and held it to herself until I brought the car to a halt. Then she wordlessly passed it over.

My poor little girl.

It was bad. Not the kind of picture a parent thinks is bad, but the kind that will devastate a self-conscious kid. While most of the kids wore the standard motley of sheepish grins, baleful stares, and bizarre leers, my poor Mia looked like she had just been goosed by The Joker. Her eyes were round as small moons and her grin was a wide, fearsome display of clenched teeth. I've seen this face before, many times: it's her goofy face, her I'm-a-little-too-happy-for-it-to-last-much-longer face. And the photegrapher had immortalized it on camera. In a group shot. Which every kid in the class was going to take home.

God help me: I chuckled. Then, horrified at my own reaction and trying to cover it up, I asked, lamely, "Were you trying to be goofy?"

"No," she said, and then she broke down into tears. "I didn't know my eyes were that wide. I thought the he was supposed to pick the best one. He took lots of pictures. He was supposed to pick the best one."

"Oh, honey."

I didn't tell her it looked fine. She knew it didn't. It was embarrassing, and she's going to get teased about it. It can't be stopped.

She kind of leaned over in my direction. I unfastened her seat belt for her and she climbed into my lap. I hugged her and she put her head into my shoulder, just sobbing, this gentle, effortless cascade of grief and shame pouring from her like water from a jug. I stroked her hair and said "Oh, kiddo," a couple of times; and then, incredibly, despite my stupid reaction and our argument of only minutes before, and despite the world-altering catastrophe of this photograph, her crying eased to a stop. She just sat there with me for a few moments more, sniffling a little. But the tears had gone away.

I made up a story of an even worse face I made during one of my own class pictures; it wasn't true, but she didn't know that, and it got her to laugh at me and mimic my ridiculous face.

It's good to know, even as she's growing older and the rules between us are constantly being reset, that there are still hurts I can take away with just a good long hug. That there are some things I can still make better just by being Daddy.