So today we had what has to have been the worst playdate in recorded history. We met with Trueby's friend and one of her friends at the park to get the two girls together after much too long apart. They met at daycare and have been each other's yin and yang for as long either of them can remember. I know being apart from the friend she has spent every single weekday with for half of her little life has been tough on the girl. She was so completely overwrought that she cried the entire time! Ok, there were breaks where, after wailing on my lap, she would recover enough to go back at it, but within seconds something would set her off again.
I know it sounds bratty, but it broke my heart all to pieces, and here's why. She is really having a tough time adjusting to kindergarten. As a chick who needs feel anchored and familiar and in control of a situation, she is navigating this entirely alien environment and doing it completely alone. Rules she didn't know existed are governing her days, people she doesn't know at all make up her company, choices are made by those people that quite frankly are freaking her out. We all know how public school is distressingly full of the public. The sheltered CDC world that prepared her so well to be a beautiful human being, didn't prepare her at all for interacting with others who haven't had the same training. She knows "tattling" is a sin, and so doesn't know what to do when she is unable to solve a problem on her own. As one of 21 cogs in the room, my silent observer is completely over run. She enjoys her after-school program more, but even then she is having trouble finding her place. I just about cried in front of her when she showed me a huge divot she had taken out of her tongue when she and another girl collided and she bit down on herself. There was an honest to god tooth shaped hole in her tongue and it was swollen and making it really uncomfortable when it kept bumping on her teeth. I asked her if the workers had given her an ice cube to suck on and she said they didn't know it happened. I asked her, "Didn't you cry?" and she said, "No, I just sat down and was really sad." Oh my word.So anyway, the playdate. I think she was so over-emotional to be back with her friend, safe and familiar, that she just couldn't get control of herself. She cried and cried and cried. When she would go play, I talked with my friend about her and just blubbered myself. I am so fortunate to have such an understanding and compassionate friend who listened and agreed and supported, and never told me I was over-coddling (though I know I am), or had to let her find her own way (though I know I do) or that I was over-reacting (hello...met me before?). After we left we came home and had dinner then all three of us curled up in front of the TV to watch a movie together. I just hope letting her know that her world outside of school is as strong and consistent as ever, that she is as strong as ever, will help speed the transition through this icky period. And I know it's a transition, she will eventually make good friends and become the loudmouth kid her teacher wishes would just shut it. I know that. But right now she is just breaking my heart.
