Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Growing up ... and learning not to overreact

I received an email yesterday - a disturbing email from out of the blue - the kind of email that will make your blood boil as you type out a hasty response (which I did). But, my saving grace is that I did not send the email. (Although I forwarded the email I received to a couple of people just to say, "Can you believe this?" Hey, I'm not without faults.) I have, after much thought, decided not to respond - either by email or in person; however, if directly confronted, I will probably stand my ground - that's the burgeoning litigator in me, I suppose (and I say, "Ha!" to those who really know me).

This past Saturday, Casey was invited to a pool party with 3 of her friends from her former preschool. She was hurt when, after being there for an hour, her three friends behaved as though they didn't want to play with Casey. Seeing what was happening, I started our usual "countdown to leave, starting at 10 minutes." I couldn't bear to see her hurting, but I didn't want to be confrontational either. In the changing area, she cried, "They didn't want to play with me." I assured her everything would be okay, that she's making new friends, the pool party kids are in ps now, and her life is changing. I also encouraged her to be gracious to the hostess and not let the other children see that she was upset. (And, I made a mental note that the moms weren't having much to discuss with me - their conversations focused on their kids starting kindergarten, and my brief mention of home schooling made them noticeably uncomfortable.)

I'm attempting to practice some level of grace and teach my children the same. While I may not be graceful in form - I cannot walk into a room without tripping over my own feet or bumping into something - I can be graceful in substance. This is my prayer.

2 comments:

the striped rose said...

If you are not going to respond to that email, can I? ;) And that column on my blog is not when I last visited a blog, rather when it was last updated by its owner! So all the world can see if you are lazy!

Michele

Unknown said...

Can i lay the smack down? Forget the email - i want the pool party incident. No one ignores Casey!