I wish...

Ella got a bit upset today because she had decided that she wanted someone to come pick her up from school tomorrow and got voicemail on both the person's landline and mobile when she tried to call them. I don't think she'd ever heard a voicemail before, so she got very upset when the voice stopped responding.

So after a lot of "I wish they would talk to me, I wish they would come pick me up" (and my favourite: "I wish they would buy a new phone") she started to expand her wishlist, seemingly with the main purpose of making herself more sad. By now it was about 30 mins past her bedtime (ignoring the end of daylight saving, that is) so she got more and more melodramatic.

We got:

I wish I was six, so I could stay up later.
I wish I was 7 or 8 or 9.
I wish I was a grown-up so I could stay up as late as I wanted.
I wish kids wouldn't have to sleep as long.
I wish grown-ups were only as big as kids.

I tried my best to be sympathetic as she really seemed very sad and I tried to make her see the positives of the way things are but eventually had to decide to treat it as a ploy to delay the inevitable bedtime and told her that some things just are the way they are, that she should stop trying to make herself sad, think of happier things and go to sleep and left with a teary "Ok, mum" from her.

I think she was asleep soon after her head touched the pillow...