My seven-year-old daughter and I have a few projects we've recently developed. One is planting some flower and pumpkin seeds, hoping to beautify our front "yard" and grow a few pumpkins for next Halloween. Another is we cook a few meals together. Tonight, we watered our plants and cooked spaghetti and meatballs, one of our specialties.
Everyone except Julia in our household is a male, and since I have three sons, and their friends often drop by, Julia usually feels badly outnumbered here. She and I have developed our routines partly as a way for her to feel happier here. In her Mom's house, by contrast, she always has at least one other female, and often others, as her mother's friends drop by.
When we are working side by side, as we did tonight, her on a chair and me with my feet on the floor, she often tells me her secrets. A while back, it was her sadness at being excluded in a friendship triangle by two of her closest friends. Tonight, it was something else altogether.
I had asked her what her favorite memories in this household were, and she responded with a list of times involving my former girlfriend:
*"When we had the party for J when she came home from Mississippi the first time, with candied apples, cakes, and my sign on the front door."
*"When J made the mosaic box with me."
*"When J took me to get my nails done."
*"When J showed me the catalogue and we bought my bed."
She also told me she feels our house is much sadder since J left.
She told a friend she wanted to write J a letter and tell her how she feels. But I reminded her that she had already sent her an email last month, with no response. "I'm sure she has just been too busy helping people to write back," Julia told me.
1 comment:
Thank you. And thanks for leaving a comment.
Post a Comment