by Kate Willoughby Hall, CEO of Richmondmom.com, mom of two rough-and-tumble little boys and this little princess, too.
Portrait by Hayes and Fisk, the Art of Photography
It was her first big-girl birthday party. The first invitation addressed just to her from her preschool friend, the first time she was allowed to choose her own gift for her special friend, the first time just she was going to a party for a friend without her big brothers. She was all dressed in the requested (in-shreds) pink tutu with leggings underneath, crazy white-blonde hair in ringlets and a mess as always, running into the jump-and-play storefront eager to see her friend.
There was laughter, playing, jumping, bouncing, hand-holding.
And then there were tears.
Taking a rare moment to sink into the pages of a local magazine I was lulled into a false sense of relaxation as the children bounced and played. So when she ran up to me, tears streaming down her eyes I immediately assumed she was hurt, scooped her up, soothed her. When she could finally catch her breath in-between sobs she cried:
She doesn’t want to be my FRIEND ANYMORE!
Oh, honey, I told her, I’m sure that’s not true. The birthday girl loves you and invited you to her party, so of course she wants to be your friend.
BUT her sister just told me she doesn’t like me anymore, to go away and I’m not her friend anymore!
In the span of a sentence, my heart sank, a sucker-punch aimed at this little pint-sized princess landed in my gut, and I wished that I could swirl an invisible protective shield around my little sweetheart so that she wouldn’t hurt so.
After a few moments of soothing, she asked me to seek out her friend–the birthday girl—and her sister, which we did, and we sorted it all out.
I’m not sure what happened.
But it doesn’t really matter. What matters is the door is opened for years of heartache, cruel scathing words, and ugliness that I’ll want to keep from touching her, and the vulnerability of realizing that I have absolutely no power to do so. What cruelty in the heat of the moment, spoken from an innocent child’s lips can do to the heart of the recipient. Oh, and the recipient’s parents. The girls played out the remainder of the birthday party, hand-in-hand, without incident. I, on the other hand, will be waiting—and worrying—for the next.
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