On the day we met, I remember feeling so grateful to this girl for unknowingly giving me an hour of blissful solitude with a really good book. “Jessica” stood chatting to my husband while they watched the kids on the beach as I sat suntanning my pregnant belly. Eventually of course it ended and she ambled in my direction hesitant as she approached me.

“So sorry for capturing your husband” she laughed.

Both ex-pats, our friendship has grown from then with days out, shared confidences, coffee dates; with and without the children, sleepovers, shared dinners, wine hangovers, favours promised and kept.

She has become a good friend, I enjoy her company, she stays busy and interesting…  and interested…  as a good friend should.

She knows that I harbour a secret dream of writing professionally, someday, and she encourages me with fervor. She cajoles me when I make excuses that I can’t find the time or that I’m too tired. She has confided lots; her depression, which she has fought hard to overcome, was at it’s worst when we first met. She battles it on a daily basis and I have been there as a listener and advisor… I know this, as she has told me frequently.

So here is my dilemma… I don’t write this with lame fingertips or an apathetic mind, it has been nagging at me for quite some time; in fact, the more I think about this the more uptight every joint in my body becomes… taut and sprung like a nervous doe.

SHE DOESN’T LIKE MY LITTLE GIRL.

There.

I’ve said it.

Out loud.

I feel relief.

The dislike has been bothering me incessantly. I’ve felt it in the way she talks to Lindsay, and even more in the way she ignores her. She tolerates her–just.

I have witnessed her admonishing her for the slightest misbehaviour. She critiques her constantly and throws words like… spoiled… pouting…. moody all in her direction. Not directly, but she says stuff like, “God its a good thing mine are boys, I couldn’t handle that stroppy madam malarkey.”

Lindsay is a great little artist, loves to draw and doodle but Jessicas comment the other day was “God, don’t you ever get tired of that?”

She comments negatively on her dress sense… on her skin tone. “She always looks so washed out…”

Lindsay is fair skinned and pale. The last time we were together, Lindsay and her two boys were playing in the garden in the paddling pool, Jessica’s husband was spraying them with the hose, and my little girl was splashing back with gusto.  “She’s a precocious little thing isn’t she….”

Have I mentioned that my daughter is five?

Today, I realise that something has gotta give. I cannot keep this up. I adore my two children more than the world of words can say. But more than this, I really LIKE my daughter.

She is five.

She is confident, can be sassy, talkative, smart, sometimes pouty, but always with a reason. She can throw an almighty tantrum but they are becoming more infrequent as she matures. She is warm and affectionate and my best little friend. I adore when her hand is in mine and I feel the flow of maternal love melt whatever hiccup life throws at us. She is learning… all sorts of stuff from all sorts of places.

She amuses me constantly with her questions.” Mummy, you know when the water comes down the mountain and it passes through our creek, where does it go next mummy…? And mummy, you know when we go to the store and get stuff…….well mummy, where does the store get the stuff…? Mummy, what drives the car when you’re not turning the wheel…..? ”

I love seeing the world through her eyes. she makes me see things with new delight and renewed interest. She hates it when I “budge” her words.

I love that she has a voice. My husband and I are very laid back, some might say that we lack structure, our house rules are so blase they could hang on the washing line and blow in the wind like a flag of freedom. But we are proud that our little girl has her say at the family table…. albeit we often eat on the floor… but we always chat and listen and she knows her opinion is important and her voice is heard.

She became a big sister last year, not as easy a transition as we had hoped for, but we are getting there and with every passing day it is getting easier on all of us. Our little boy has big shoes to follow in his sister’s footprints, but already he looks at her with absolute adoration. I know that life-willing, they will be close siblings and she will teach him to find his voice too.

I am not sure how I will handle this relationship dilemma with Jessica. Good friends are hard to come by. She does have other friends–I am hearing more and more about play dates organised with different people. She is the queen of social media, a conqueror in a new country.

One of my daughters nursery songs comes to mind, The Grand old Duke of York. He had ten thousand men, and when they were up, they were up, and when they were down, they were down, and when they were only half way up they were neither up nor down.

Jessica is up right now, and I am afraid that challenging her will cause her to come crashing down with the weight and fear of ten thousand men. That doesn’t mean I am okay with how she feels about my daughter. 

I think I have already retreated a little: declined invitations, rain cheques stuffed into the forgotten corners of my mind.

I am busy. I am writing.

 

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Wannabe's are Guest Authors to BLUNTmoms. They might be one-hit wonders, or share a variety of posts with us. They "may" share their names with you, or they might write as "anonymous" but either way, they are sharing their stories and their opinions on our site, and for that we are grateful.

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