Let's start with girls. As I got older I learned to appreciate the need for a solid group of girlfriends, you know, in a Secret Life of Bees kind of way, but growing up I had a lot of trouble liking or trusting other girls my age. Now that my daughter is in kindergarten, I relive the horror. I guess I didn't realize--or had forgotten?--that girl bullying starts so damn early. It started when she came home from school one day and didn't want to sing in the school concert because her "sweater [was] silly." (It was not silly--it was a black, red and white scottie dog sweater and it was awesome.) Apparently some girl at school made fun of her outfit and told her she didn't sing pretty, so she wanted to just skip this concert that she'd been excited about for over a week. Somehow I convinced her to change into something that would make her feel more comfortable (it took her an hour) and the show went on. But in weeks to follow, my daughter stopped wearing some of her favorite clothes. The zebra print leggings got pushed into the back of the drawer, the good Nike athletic shoes were all but forgotten, and much fancier outfits--like, way overkill for a day at school--started being worn. As I see it, here's what's going on. First, the girl bully puts her down because the girl bully is a future Regina, queen of all she surveys, and she wants to be the alpha girl. I thing the other problem is that "Regina" has a crush on my daughter's little boyfriend, so she keeps pulling my daughter aside and saying that *E doesn't want to play with my daughter anymore.
Today I found it interesting that my daughter chose new playmates at recess--all of them boys (including her older brother). And "Regina" wanted to play freeze tag, too, but my daughter wouldn't let her. This is tit for tat, as Queen Bee excluded my daughter in the same way earlier this week. So then I have to have this talk with my daughter about not excluding poeple, remember how she made you feel, how do you think she felt when you excluded her... Then I stopped and said, "T, I know you don't feel like that girl deserves your kindness, and you're probably right. She hasn't been very nice to you. But we all have to learn to be nice even to the people who aren't particularly nice to us. People who aren't nice are usually angry or unhappy about something, so if you think about that, you might be able to see them differently."
But beneath this advice what I am really thinking is, "That girl's lousy sense of self esteem, which makes her an insecure little bully, is going to plague my daughter for at least the next 5 1/2 years, or at worst, the next 12 1/2 ."
And how could I forget to mention the theft from my daughter's locker? (They don't actually lock, so I use the term loosely.) One week it's her new chapstick. The next week it's her mini bottle of hand sanitizer. Then it was her brand new Little Mermaid umbrella, which she had bought the day before with her own money. The unbrella was returned, but not the other things. That is, unless you count that my daughter saw her hand sanitizer in another girl's hands and stole it back.
In short, I have decided that where other people's kids are concerned, I'd rather they stayed home and left my baby alone. I've made the obligatory comments like "Maybe they are just jealous of you because they like your boyfriend," and "Well I think that outfit is cool!" and "Who cares what other people think? You do what you like to do, and if those other girls don't like it, find better friends." And come on, parents, we all know we're spewing loads of bullshit that most of us don't even believe (e.g. "Who cares what other people think?" because we all do, really).
So what I am probably doing is teaching my child to be like me--and like her grandma--and keep being nice to people who treat her like dirt when really she should just be telling them to hit the highway. 'Cause let me tell you; I've spent years trying to kill people with kindness (one of these days I might even write about the story of my principal and the birthday cake I brought for him that I am 99.9999% sure he threw in the garbage--which would make a ton of sense in retrospect because unbeknownst to me, he spent the entire year trying to figure out how he could fire me and promote his friends instead). So much for extending kindness. The guy was having a really, really bad week and I thought a cake might perk up his spirits. So the lesson I learned is don't be nice because it just makes you look like a fool in the end.
Other things.
I think I should start making a top ten list of dumb things people say when they find out I am eating a vegan diet. This just never stops. I know these people are well meaning, but...No, I am not anemic. Yes, I am getting my essential vitamins and minerals. No, I do not need that much protein--and you probably don't either--but thanks for the suggestions. Yes, I understand your theories about how humans were always meant to be omnivores, but you see, we no longer live in caves and small huts where if we don't hack down a few bears or buffalo for the winter, we will be likley to starve (and maybe even freeze) to death. We now have grocery stores where we can buy anything at any time. If I need essential fat, I'll have an avocado. My nuts and nutbutters give me protein. I can buy watermelon in the middle of February for God's sake.
So. First off, my life choices aren't funny. They are also not ill informed, ignorant, or misguided. When I have company at my house, I don't tell them that the meat they are eating is killing them. I don't call up omnivorous friends and tell them that they are more likely to get cancer than I am (that's true, by the way). I don't make rude comments about other people's orders when I go to a restaraunt. Who are these people and at what point did they learn that they know everything? It's ridiculous. If you're one of those people, do everyone a favor. Shut up.
I guess that's all for now. This isn't a particularly eloquent or long entry, and it's likely dreadfully uninteresting, but I needed to get back on the wagon. I come up with ideas for things I'd like to write about on almost a daily basis, but life gets in the way, right?
