Expectations from a hug

My daughter Lily was having a bad morning today. Her school project didn’t save on the computer at home so she did not have a complete assignment that was due today. We argued about how I thought she was not going to be killed by her teacher at school today. I also let her know my feelings about waiting until this morning to try and print this out. Lily was bummed out and before we left for school I decided to give her a hug. When I hugged her she pushed me away and grabbed her stuff for school. I was mad, I tried to make her day better and she shrugged me off. She knew I was mad and acted like she didn’t care; I was not going to talk to her the whole way to taking her and her friend to school. On the way a thought hit me, it even made me smile at myself. I realized I wasn’t mad at Lily, but mad because things didn’t go the way I wanted them to go. I wanted this upset child to take my hug, feel better, and say “thank you dad, you’re the best dad in the whole world.” I think my expectations were a little too high there, in fact when it comes to giving a hug there shouldn’t be any expectations. I’m sorry that something Lily worked so hard on got lost, but I am also happy that she is not afraid to release her feelings like she can around me. We got to school and as she got out I made sure I turned and gave her a smile and said “have a good day.” Lily slowly looked up at me with a look that said she was sorry, smiled, and said “bye.” Sometimes when we don’t get what we want, we end up with more then what we expected.