Tallie has this backdoor neighbor whose name is Elena Wakefield. And it is so great. It reminds of growing up with my best friend Amy Jelso who lived across the street. We would run back and forth between houses and play until the sun went down. We went to the same school, were in the same class and rode the same bus. It was the best thing in the world. Tallie and Elena are like that. They run from house to house and share everything and play until dark. But there is an age difference which makes ALL the difference. Tallie is 5 and Elena just turned 7. She is in 1st grade while Tallie is still in preschool because she just misses the cut off date for school. It's a pretty big jump. But they still play really well and are great friends.
The other day Elena came over ranting and raving about her new best friend Caitlyn who just moved a couple streets over and is in her class at school. She is 7 too. And lately she has been coming to play with Elena.
The problem with that is that 3 is a crowd and someone always gets left out. It happened with Monica Sanchez, Rebecca Gates and I in middle school and it happened with Monica and Crisitin Duff and I in highschool.
3 SUCKS.
When Elena gets with another friend she doesn't give Tallie the time of day and she is always left out.
The other day Tallie was sitting in the yard watching Elaina and Caitlyn playing across the yard (we share a yard) and she came to me and she was really sad. She asked for another friend to come over because Elaina has other friends and is not playing with her. It breaks my heart. Tallie was so sad. This new girl came into the picture and Tallie is watching her best friend play with someone else in her own backyard.
I knew the day would come when Elena might look down on Tallie and no longer want to play with her. I really hope they will always be friends and can look past the age and grade differences.
I worry about the other girls in the neighborhood too. There are so many 5 year olds, which is great. However, most all of them got to go to kindergarden this year and Tallie was left behind.
I worry because even though they are the SAME age their friendships might drift because they are in different grades at school. You know how kids are, they think they can't be friends with the kids in grades below them. It's uncool.
It's hard being a mom.
I never want my kids to have to go through pain and heartbreak.
But It's apart of life, and I can't stop it.
It's how they learn and grow and become the person they are meant to become.
It still sucks.
I know the future includes a lot of tears, and all I can do is hold them and cry with them.
p.s. I ran 11 miles today solo.
It was great and I'm starting to think I can hit my goal of 1 hour and 50 min
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