A Little Rant On A Saturday

The hardest thing for me as a parent (so far) is to see my children in pain. Yesterday when I picked up Kennedy from school she asked if we had gotten an 'inbitation' in the mail from a certain friend in our ward who is also at her preschool. When I told her we hadn't she burst into tears, and not the fake kind either. I knew what the problem was. She had been telling me about the birthday party this little girl was going to have off and on for about 2 months. And Kennedy was sobbing because 'the birthday party is today and I didn't get an inbitation!' It broke my heart to see her so sad. It was a good opportunity to discuss how we can't all go to everything, though.

We had talked about it a little while ago when there was another church friend whose party she didn't get invited to but whose party details she had been told all about. Get this, her mother walked around church and into Kenna's classroom handing out (what I assume were) invitations to some kids/parents. When we didn't get one I preemptively took the opportunity to explain to Kennedy about party's. Even though inside I was thinking how uncouth that Mother had been flaunting the party (unintentionally I am sure) in front of uninvited kids. Of course you can't have every child to a party, and I certainly don't expect young kids not to talk about parties they are excited for. I do however, hope that the parents would at least attempt to be discreet. Anyway, yesterday I reminded Kenna of how party's work and tried to console her and tell her that even though she hadn't been invited it doesn't mean that her friend dislikes her etc. And again, this rant isn't about my child not being invited to something so much as her pain at being left out, which I know inevitably happens in life.

I always used to think parents in movies and stuff who talked about wanting to just 'take the pain away' from their children were cheesy. But that is exactly how I felt yesterday- my sweet little girl in the back seat of the car just sobbing while listing off all of the fun party activities she would be missing out on. I had the weirdest pull of feelings going on inside of me. Wishing so fervently that there was some way I could completely take this emotional pain from my child, and yet at the same time being grateful there wasn't actually a way because I know how important it is to have these experiences and to learn and grow.

Anyway, I took her with me to go see some friend's new baby. They used to be Kennedy's awesome Sunday school teachers and they named their new daughter Kennedy as well so it helped Kenna to forget the other stuff. Brooke (the Mom) and I were looking at baby Kennedy's cord and my Kennedy was totally taken aback by the whole thing. Oh, if you could only have seen the look on her face...That night when I was putting her to bed she was asking questions about belly buttons and the cords on the baby and then she put an end to the conversation by telling me, "Mom, let's not talk about baby belly-buttons anymore...it weirds me out."