When I was pregnant with Freyja, my sister-in-law was expecting at the same time, and the baby who would become Charlotte was known as "Bean". As "Bean' was no longer a family option for a nickname for our bundle to be, we started calling 'it' "Widget". This soon became "Fidgetty Widget" as that little baby on board never kept still. She's been the same ever since.
Today, my little tornado turns 8! At 4.04pm GMT (9.05am here in Calgary) my little girl moves that step closer to being a woman, and I'm scared!
Its been quite a week in our house, good and also, pretty much as bad as you can get. At the weekend, she went off to Brownie Camp. I dropped her off Friday night, and barely managed to get her to stop chatting with her friends long enough to say goodbye to her sister and I, a sign of how grown up and independant she is getting. When I collected her on Sunday though, I got a huge hug and "I missed you" whispered in my ear.
While she had a great time at camp, impressed the leaders with her enthusiasm and her behaviour, she also missed her family and even had a little cry at night. While I hate that she was upset, a little part of me is happy that there is enough child in there to still miss a night time hug and kiss.
When she came home on Sunday, she told me how she had been worrying all weekend that I was going and never coming back, that something was going to happen. Nothing did happen, of course, but my sensitive little girl was maybe picking up something in the cosmos.
On Monday, I got a call from the school asking me to collect Freyja as she was not feeling well. I left work, went and got her, much to her surprise as she had expected her Daddy, and took her home. She had a tummy ache that wouldn't go away, so we went through all the questions. Did you eat your lunch? Did you eat the fruit or just the bad stuff? Did you eat properly at camp this weekend? Did you drink enough water at camp? How about at school? Did you go to the bathroom at camp?
The answer to the last question turned out to be 'No" so I figured I had my answer and promptly ordered her to the bathroom with a book to "give it a try". Success, but still a tummy ache that persisted. I dutifully set her up in my bed with a glass of water and the TV remote. I then began making phone calls to find out which of her friends was coming to her party this coming weekend as I hadn't had RSVPs. "I don't think M is coming" she says as I'm about to call. I make the call and her Grandma answers, not her Mom, and sure enough M isn't coming. I tell her she was right. "I thought she wouldn't because K said today that M's Dad died in a truck accident last week"
Oh My God !!!!!!
There had been a horrific accident involving a tractor trailer on the main route near our home the week before, but it was Easter week, the kids were off school, I hadn't had a chance to read the details and Monday had been their first day back. I got out my phone, Googled his name, and there it was, an obituary and the date of the crash......
Now I knew why my baby had a tummy ache. She had been holding that to herself all afternoon, not knowing what to say, or if it was true. We knew M's dad. Not well, but enough that he and M's Mom had once come to our house and had food before we all set out Trick or Treating together one Halloween. We'd see him at school dances and Christmas shows and chat. He was a truly nice, good man, and a wonderful father and husband.
All Monday night, Freyja would ask for hugs and squeeze tightly, she didn't want to go to bed, but finally, after an hour of cajolling, she did and amazingly she slept soundly for a few hours, not waking until around 2am. I lay with her another hour then, and I am not sure who needed it more, me or her. She fell asleep again, and slept till morning, waking in that resiliant way that kids do after bad news.
She went to school Tuesday and I called to tell them we knew what had happened and was told a grief counsellor was going to be with her class that morning. I wish I'd had one myself as I was a wreck. We weren't close, but I knew him, I knew the horrible way his life had ended, I knew the confusion and sadness I was feeling were the same feelings my poor girl had, and like me, she was likely imagining "what if it had been her Daddy".
My big girl came home yesterday without mentioning her friend or the grief counsellor, so I mentioned it to her. "Yes" she said "it helped to talk about it. M is coming back to school on Thursday and they said two of her friends should be close to her all the time and go to meet her at the door. I told them I should be one of them as I have known her longer than anyone, and I knew her Daddy, so I think I will be able to be a good friend and help her feel better."
Only 8 today, off to 'Aggie Days' with the school to see the animals, she will be a kid having fun again, but tomorrow, she will be that mature girl, the shoulder to support her friend. Saturday, she will be the kid again, enjoying her party, but I know part of her will be thinking about the friend who isn't there, the friend who is at home missing her Daddy.
My baby isn't a baby any more. She has kept telling me she didn't want to grow up, and I kept telling her it happens to everyone, but I thought the biggest thing threatening to bring the end of childhood would be the onset of puberty.... I never thought my girl would have to deal with such big issues so soon in life, and I am so proud of how strong she is being, and how her first and continuing thought is how she can make her friend feel better, feel happy, even if just for a moment.
What a wonderful person she is growing up to be, my sweet, kind, loving, feisty, argumentative, creative, all singing, all dancing, Fidgetty Widget xxx
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