I don't know what I am going to do about Sarah. Yesterday we were driving down the highway, listening to music and talking. She gets quiet for a moment, and then all of a sudden, I hear a huge sob come out of the backseat! I look back there, wondering what in the world could have happened to her! It turns out we had driven past the freeway exit to her preschool, and . . . "I miss my friends! I miss Ruby! I miss the turkey!" And on and on she went.
I tried telling her that the summer program would be starting next week, and she would get to see her friends then. But "Six days is tooooooooo many!" Sob, sob, sob. I kept trying to explain things to her and then realized what a fruitless battle that was. So then I kicked into psych mode and just told her how sorry I was that she was feeling so sad, and that I knew that it was hard to miss your friends. Well, that didn't really help either. She cried for almost 10 minutes as we zoomed down the highway.
And I have to admit that this is kind of new territory for me. At her last preschool, she didn't really have a "best friend." She had some friends whom she liked, but she never talked about them like she talks about her best friend here. Everything is about Queenie*. In fact, today Sarah even asked to buy a headband. (This from the girl who either wants her hair "flat," which means hanging down her back, or in a regular old ponytail. And truth be told, the ponytails aren't even that great because her mother is rather lame when it comes to cute hair-do's!) After she put it on, she smiled and said, "I look just like Queenie."
Now, thank goodness, that Queenie will be attending part of the summer program. But please notice that I said only part of it! I can't even imagine what is going to happen when that last day happens. And it's not like these two girls will be going to the same school one day. There are way too many freeway exits between our house and theirs! Honestly, I just don't know what it is going to be like. And I feel so sad and hopeless because she is so sad. And then I wonder what it is going to be like when she is a teenager if she is so emotional already. And then that just makes me feel more emotional and hopeless and sad . . . Yikes. Therapy for the house, please!
And I think that I have my genes to blame for this! As you may already know, I am quite the emotional crybaby myself. Cries at lame commercials, kid movies, you know, that kind of stuff. And my mom has admitted that she used to cry frequently as a little girl, especially when someone would be leaving. So Sarah, no doubt, has got salty, teary blood surging through that skinny little body of hers.
And just so you're clear on the genetic aspect of this, I am actually avoiding watching something on TV because I think that it is going to make me cry! Last month (maybe even the month before, who knows?), I saw that PBS was running a special about Elsa, the lioness made famous by the movie, Born Free. Well, I remember watching that movie many times, and I remember bawling my eyes out watching it. So, of course, I had to record it, and it reminds me nightly that it is sitting there in the queue, unwatched. I really want to watch it. I really don't know why I don't. I think it's just the emotional aspect of it. I was the girl who was banned by her father from watching Wide World of Disney on Sunday nights (anybody remember that?) because, if there was a story about an animal that got hurt, I would cry and cry and cry. My dad got so mad at me that he finally told me I couldn't watch it anymore! So everyone else watched it while I went to my room and read for that hour.
Sarah hasn't got a chance.
*Name changed for confidentiality!
