Pulling at my Heart Strings

Just when I thought I knew just about everything about my children and being a mom, I was taught something new. Abby is such a beautiful girl. She's generally happy, she has a wicked sense of humor, she's active and loves to play, she's loving and nurturing, and I never really saw a lot of myself in her. I've always compared Abby to Tara in that their temperaments are similar--they both have so much emotion that it's sometimes hard to control it. Abby's also a lot like her daddy--things need to be a certain way or they're wrong.

I never thought anything negative about her being like other people but not like me. I already have one child that is almost an exact replica of me as a kid. And since Emma and Abby are so different, I always saw my relationship with Abby kind of like my relationship with my sister. Emma and Abby are almost copies of Tara and me. But, I've realized that there are similarities between Ab and me.

Abby has been complaining that she doesn't like school. She says it's boring and that she has no friends. I haven't known how serious to take the friend issue. But it keeps coming up more and more. I checked with her teacher and she reports that Abby has a friend, but my heart has begun to break for Abby. Maybe she's not really exaggerating. It brings me to memories of second grade, probably the most difficult year of my life. I felt exactly the way Abby says she feels.

I try to joke about the fact that in second grade I went to three schools. I wasn't expelled, we just moved a lot. We moved the summer before second grade, so I began the year at a new school. I knew two sisters that attended that school, but neither were in my grade, so I didn't have anyone to play with at recess. My teacher seemed very uncaring, and once I heard her tell another teacher that she thought my dad was cute. I didn't like her. We were there during my birthday in September, but we moved before Halloween. At the second school I did have one friend named Kindsey. We played together and walked home together, but there were two girls that were older than us that picked on us on our way home everyday. One day, one of the girls (the ringleader) asked what our names were. I told her mine and she bit my head off that she wasn't talking to me. When Kindsey told the girl her name, the girl said her name was Lindsay. Then Lindsay asked Kindsey if she wanted to play with them. That was the last day I had a friend at that school. I tried to make other friends, but when you're eight years old, it's hard to balance old and new friends and old friends always won. I played at recess alone, I walked home alone, I was really pretty miserable. Finally, in May, we moved again. This time we moved to New Orleans. I made one friend, a boy. We got teased all the time. Not because we were different races, but because we were different genders. We mutually stopped being friends since we couldn't take the teasing anymore. We moved again during the summer and I made a much better friend, several actually, and never really had the problem again.

But now, listening to Abby talk about not having friends and knowing that we've transplanted her twice in the last year, I can't help but completely empathize with her. I just want to hold her and make her feel safe and loved. She's such a great person and I love her beyond anything. I wish she understood how wonderful she really is. My tears have been plentiful over this issue. I wish I could make her feel loved and accepted when I'm not around and I wish I could shake sense in the kids around her until they too know how incredible she is. My sweet Ab.