My Walking Heart

Last week we babysat a little girl that is two years older than Rori. Let's call her Lisa. Rori and Lisa played together quite a bit this summer, and Rori really loves spending time with Lisa. I understand that Lisa was having a rough day because she hadn't seen her mom in two days, so she was relatively crabby. Still, I have learned, as my mom has told me, that having children means that your heart is walking outside of your body.

She ignored Rori and when Rori wanted to play dollhouse with her, Lisa boxed her out. Then Lisa went and laid on the couch and sweet Rori took Lisa's face in her hands and said, "can I lay on the couch too?" Lisa pushed her arms away and said, "Leave me alone!" My heart broke a bit for my baby girl, because she had been looking forward to Lisa's visit and said, "I love Lisa so much!" Then, after dinner Lisa took a bag of cereal that she had brought with her and started to eat it. Rori asked if she could please have some. Lisa said, "no." I told Lisa that if she didn't share she would have to put it away. So, she obliged Rori with one piece and then shoved a handful in her own mouth. After Rori finished her piece, she asked if she could please have another. My heart melted each time she asked, because she asked so sweetly and always said please. She was thrilled when Lisa would give her one. Each time Lisa gave her one, she would shove a handful in her own mouth and I could tell she was trying to finish the bag having to give Rori a minimal amount. The whole evening was so hard to watch, so I complained to my superhero--Bill and he reminded me that Lisa was missing her mom. Then he engaged them in a game of hide and seek until Lisa's dad came to get her. There were still moments of brattiness from her after Bill started playing with them, but it did get better.

I know that my children can be stinkers too, but it is so hard to watch someone your child adores be mean to her. It gets the mama bear in me all riled up. I can handle someone picking on me, but pick on my kids and watch out! One time, I even yelled at a bunch of adolescent boys. Rori was about 20 months old and had adopted two of my old barbies. She brought them with in her stroller when we went for walks. She dropped her favorite one in front of some kids who smiled and said hi. We didn't notice until we turned the corner. When we went back to get it the boys had already be-headed and dismembered her and thrown her in the street. We found all her parts except her head. Well, mama bear in me came out when they told us they had used it as a baseball and weren't sure where it landed. I yelled at them, I may have even sworn--it's all kind of a blur. I think I even seriously considered calling the police--obviously I wasn't in my right mind. Well, I must have been scary, because they tracked down Barbie's head and gave her back to us. I seethed about it for quite a while. Part of me knows they're boys and that's what they do, but they also could have run up to us and given it back because they clearly knew it belonged to Rori.

Anyway, I shudder to think how I'm going to feel once Rori starts school and learns about the "mean girls." I pray that she's not one of them, but I also pray that her sweet spirit doesn't get broken by them either. This parenting stuff is hard.