Growing Pains

This summer Alice has been attending a kids program at the church she where she attended Mother's Day Out.

She goes about every other week and they get to do all kinds of fun things.

The group is extremely diversified in regards to age and I am pretty confident Alice is one of the youngest and since she doesn't go every week, I think it has been a bit harder to 'get friends'. 

She has come home a few times saying the other kids won't play with her. She is naturally drawn to older kids since that's usually who she is around and preteenish girls don't want to play with a little girl.

And this makes our girl sad.

Which makes this momma heartbroken.

We talk about how we're not meant to be friends with everyone and sometimes older kids don't really want to be around little ones. 

We talk about how it is okay to play on our own as well and not to let anyone get you too down.

She was a little more vocal about issues before we took her this week, I offered to not make her go back but she seems insistent. She only has one week left after this week so she might tough it out.

The kids have a rest period at the end of the day and are allowed to bring in pillows and blankets if they want. Alice has been bringing her beloved Ki-ki with her.

Yesterday she asked me if she could take one of my blankets instead because one of the other girls told her her blanket was a baby blanket.

My heart broke. And then I got irrationally mad and wanted to hunt down a child and punch them in the throat. 

This is her beloved KIKI!! This is the same blanket she told me she plans to give to her kid like I gave her mine before bed the other night. (yeah - this caused ALL THE TEARS!!!!)

And now some dumb kid is making her feel silly for loving it.

I vocalized none of these thoughts and we found a less baby-ish blanket for her to take.

These are tough lessons. 

Tough lessons for her.

Tough lessons for us. 

We cannot fight all her battles.We should not fight all her battles.

She will have to learn and lean and grow and adapt all on her own out in the wild. 

She will come home with a broken heart, hurt feelings and scars.

And we will be there to help her pick up the pieces. To encourage. To guide. To support.

And I will try REALLY hard to not punch people in the throat. 

Growing up is hard. For kids and their adults.

****

She came home yesterday saying she would be taking her Kiki after all.

Me "even though it's a baby blanket?"
Her "It's not a baby blanket! It's a special Kiki Santa made just for me!!"

Ooops.

Me "maybe we shouldn't tell the other kids that - I wouldn't want them to be jealous."

Now I get to stress about when she finds out Santa is a just a big huge lie.......

Until next time......