I’m The Gingerbread Man

I was looking for a quote I used often a long time ago and have since forgotten the end to, and decided maybe I’d find it in my blog archives.  Of course, I didn’t.  Too much to slog through, I was hoping maybe it was in one of the titles, but no.  What made me say "Wow" was how much I’ve written in all these years, and how many readers I’ve lost in the past year and a half.  Some have left blog land, some have just left me.  That, of course, is my fault:  not only was I absent for quite a while and then only sporadic, but I was quite depressing when I did manage to get online and write.  So thank you to the faithful few who’ve stuck around to come see how me and mine are doing.  I love you too.  =)

Laura hosted her first sleep-over this past week-end.  Skyler, Krysta and Heidi came over to play, all friends from her Head Start experience last year.  Krysta is also in her kindergarten class this year now and Sky lives close to us even if they don’t play together very often.  Heidi is still in HS, she’s just turned 5 last month.  Heidi is the sweetest little darlin’ ever, all kitty cats and pink ribbons and soft baby dolls.  Sky and Krysta are more "Let’s play DIE, DIE, DIE!" and "You can’t be on the top bunk because you’re wearing short pajamas and we’re wearing long pants jammies" types.  Weird as it is, normally agressive Laura is strangely quiet and cooperative with everyone when she’s with her peers, she’ll go along with whatever is going on as long as it isn’t a competitive game.  Needless to say, there were a number of times I had to pet Heidi while she cried, explain to Sky and Krysta that we don’t play bloodthirsty games at my house, break up little fights every 4 minutes…
And of course it rained all day.  You know it did.
Heidi didn’t get to spend the night, her grandma hasn’t cut the umbilical cord that much yet, even though Mom was willing and Heidi begged.  But at least she didn’t get tortured in the Barbie bloodfest that went on later at 10:30 pm when Krysta wanted to reenact a scene from Saw 3 after I was dumb enough to leave them alone for 10 minutes.  Laura alerted me to *that* one. 

I remember Jess and Becca’s sleepovers at that age when all I had to worry about was if any of the girls were going to say any naughty words one of the other kids hadn’t heard before.  And the twins sleepovers, keeping alert that one of the kids might know something "dirty" and spread the knowledge to their little friends.  Now I’ve got all that AND a six year old looking for my butter knives so she can pretend to hack up La’s Barbies?  Wow.

Laura finally gave in to her gentler nature and crawled into my bed and curled up next to me.  She said she didn’t like sleepovers any more.  I was so sad for her.  She’d looked forward to this treat for weeks, been so excited to have these girls over and play.  Only they didn’t want to play ponies and dress-up, watch Barbie movies and act them out with her, didn’t want to color or play with the paints and the butcher paper.  They wanted mayhem and scary stuff.  And what saddened me the most is that Laura, instead of sticking to her *self* came around and sided with the majority and went along for the most part.  She even told me after Heidi left that she (Heidi) was a baby.  After 3 hours of playing happily with H doing all the stuff La always loves to do.  Just because the kids in her grade, her class, two against one were more aggressive.

That worries the crap out of me.  Laura doesn’t back down to anyone around here except me, even Daddy.  I know peers are an entirely different story *later*, but NOW????  In kindergarten???  If someone like Laura isn’t capable or willing to stand up for herself what chance do the Heidi’s of this world have?   What do I do about Laura?! 

And poor Krysta and Skyler.  Five and six years old and that’s what they’re interested in?  I *know* both these children’s families.  I wouldn’t have had them over to play with Laura if I didn’t.  Granted, Sky’s Mommy isn’t the greatest in the world, but she tries, and tries hard.  Where Krysta is coming up with this stuff just astounds me though.  There were some other things she said and did, wanted to play that just boggled my mind.  And I thought I couldn’t be boggled any more.

On the up side, Libby’s 14th birthday is Saturday.  She’s bouncing off the walls excited.  Another sleepover to look forward to, AND her first "My boyfriend is coming over to dinner" occasion.  My birthday is next week, but I am ignoring that as much as possible.  It falls during Fall Break for the kids, so I’ll too busy having a nervous breakdown to remember probably.

Oh!  And good news for everyone else, bad news for Emily, sort of…she finally broke up with Jeremy after two long years.  She says she’s been fed up with him for a while, but she’s not addressing the "I’m single" issues yet, and that bothers me a little.  She’s thrown herself full-blown into talking to 2 or 3 guys already, which is making me nuts, but I can’t stop that girl from being who she is, I’ve already learned that lesson the hard way.  At least Jeremy’s gone.  That is a huge relief.

*Laugh*  I just realized I’ve just written another Downer Post.   Heck.  Next week is Fall Break.  I’m sure there will be giggles in that one.

Blessings!