Monday, August 23, 2010

*crack*

I thought post partum depression was hard.  I thought moving pregnant… twice… was hard.  I thought the eating strikes, the nursing debacle, the tantrums, travelling with toddlers and the stomach flu was hard.


Nothing, nothing hurts like seeing my little girl ostracized by other kids.  When we moved here, we went to a playgroup and my sunshine of a girl ran up to some girls her age and brightly announced she was there to play.  They yelled “No!” and ran away.  I stood there in horror, watching her stand there in horror.  She’d never been rejected before - I’d never seen her rejected before - and it felt like I’d been punched in the gut.  She looked at me so sad and confused and cried “No one wants to be my friend!”  I didn’t know what to do.  I held her while she cried and I fought my own tears back.


It hasn’t gotten easier over the last year.  Lately she asks me about all her friends we left in Georgia and begs me to take her to the Madison Airport so we can go see them.  She’s lonely.  I feel like a failure. I miss her friends.  There are so many unfriendly kids.  I work so hard to teach her to be loving and kind and understanding, and she is.  She goes up to kids on the playground and assumes they are the same, and when they aren’t and won’t play with her… I cry with her.  I yelled at a girl who would not STOP treating her like dirt, in my own home.  


What does a mom do???  Do I teach her to start acting like she’s a jerk 17 year old too???  ouch.  ouch!!  It really, really hurts.


A while back, my BFF Sabrina and I were reminiscing about our wacky, innocent HS hijinx and she told me that she prayed her daughter could have a friendship like ours as she goes through those hard adolescent years, and I’m starting to understand what she meant.  I love her.  I adore her.  I hold her every day and tell her that she is amazing, a daughter of God, wonderful, and brilliant.  My mother did the same thing (she still does, actually).  I know it’s all I can do.  I really, really hope she can have a friend who believes in her and treats her well too… we all need all we can get, really. 


Maybe I should start her blogging early… ;)

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