There is a boy in Grace's class she calls her "boyfriend." She's crazy about the little...guy. I won't use his real name, let's just call him "Trollface," shall we? So, the story goes that during Rhombus Group (not sure what that means), Trollface made fun of Grace for working too slowly, and then called her "F-A-T." She spelled it out, not sure why, but maybe because Trollface's tone made it sound like a mean, hurtful word that shouldn't be uttered aloud, instead of just a plain old everyday adjective.
That's not even the worst part. Sorry, not even kidding. The worst part is the part that made her face crumple, which was when she told me that Trollface is treating another little girl like she's his girlfriend instead of Grace. (We'll call this other little girl "Skankette.")
I'll let this sink in while you take a moment to look at a few pictures.
I don't think I need to add anything. Ok, I will anyway. She's really so beautiful she makes your heart ache. It's not the pretty-little-girl package I'm talking about either, that's a slippery slope to navigate. What she's got, and what tends to come through in her photographs, is a light inside that shines out so that you can tell just looking at her picture that she's someone you want to be around. Yeah, I'm one of those mothers...but facts are facts and I'm just telling it like it is.
I found myself feeling relieved that she didn't get hung up on the F-A-T part. That she related it like it was just tangential--and to segue into telling me that another little boy (we'll call him "Lancelot") told the teacher what Trollface said. And when Trollface started whining over being tattled on, Lancelot reminded the group that "it's not tattling when someone is being a bully and saying something hurtful to another person." Three cheers and a loud "huzzah" for Lancelot, that's what I say.
First grade. I didn't even know what it was like to be called "F-A-T" until fifth grade when a boy (we'll call him "Doucheface") called me his "Fat Secretary" in front of the whole class, which broke out into thunderous laughter, applause, and all-around agreement. Through the hot humiliated rush that made my vision blur and constrict and my hearing get echoey, I remember people shouting out things like,"Yeah, she really IS fat!" and "Better stop getting that ice-cream in the lunchroom!" Isn't that just the sweetest thing? Adorable.
It appears I had become pre-pubescence chubby, something I hadn't noticed until that very moment...but from that moment on, for a very long time, I looked in the mirror and saw a hungry-hungry-hippo (with the biggest potamus you've ever seen), a thing unfit to share the planet with non-disgusting people unlike myself. And just to give you the abbreviated version of the ensuing Lifetime Movie that was my life, it was only a matter of time before I spiraled into the mother of all eating disorders that out-Karen-Carpentered Karen Carpenter. The only difference between us (I've even been told our singing voices are similar), was that she died. In the midst of my very own bulimia nightmare, she died. You might think I'd take it as a cautionary tale and a wake-up call, and I did. But it didn't matter, couldn't stop the insanity, all it meant was that I became more consciously terrified that every new day could easily be my last. Good times.
But somehow, I did NOT die. Imagine that! It's a fact that amazes and mystifies me to this very day. If the walls in Clara Dickson Hall, dorm room number 3517, and the Cornell University health center could talk, they'd have some pretty grim stories to tell. Dangling by a thread, various organs threatening to call it a day, all very dramatic. We'll blog more about that some other time, but suffice it to say that my non-therapy induced epiphany and recovery has been my own personal "nothing is impossible" story. And to be now walking around in a body that not only survived but has cooperated in ushering two of brightest lights on the planet...well, that's just the angels showing off. (Special thanks to that crew of mine...really can't say it enough...)
Ok, so enough about me, back to Grace's story. Yes, I felt some relief that being called fat didn't seem to faze her. But the other edge of the knife is what really seemed to really sting--how Trollface had chosen Skankette instead of her. To be his girlfriend. That and how she was being abused by the rest of Rhombus Group for working too slowly. That "hurry up" thing seems to be a theme in first grade, by the way--gotta move your asses kids, step up the tempo, time's a wastin. What I want to know is, where's the goddamn fire? Are they tracking down cancer cures and male pattern baldness remedies, or learning frickin "math facts" and "sight words"? Can somebody clear up for me why my seven-year-old child, kind and smart with nice manners, is stressed out at school because it takes her too long to write out her words and arithmetic problems...while at the same time it's emphasized that her printing should be neat? I was little Miss Brainiac in school, pre-k through my masters...but with this kind of pressure I would have needed a thermos full of vodka kool-ade just to get through till recess...which by the way my daughter sometimes misses, entirely or in part, because she needs to use recess time to finish her work.
Have I lost my everlovin' mind, or is there something amiss here?
Then on any given day she comes home from school, off the bus into my waiting arms, and proceeds to participate as we all turn cartwheels because her 5-year-old special-needs brother sat long enough at the table to eat an entire cookie and not try to escape to the couch so he could eat one half and bury the other. Or maybe he requested juice with words instead of throwing his cup at Mommy's head. Or did number 2 on the potty without getting it anywhere else. Maybe he even volunteered a hug, and really really meant it. And don't get me wrong, Grace applauds as loud as anyone else, she GETS why his triumphs are so meaningful, and she GETS that his rules are necessarily different from hers.
But still I have to hold her and wipe away her tears when he pushes her away one time too many as she's trying to connect with him, to play with him, to just be with him. And I don't even get to be the smart, wise old mother hubbard who says "there there" and explains all the whys and wherefores of this rejection. Y'think there's anything I can tell her she doesn't know already? Forget it. She knows. It just hurts, and makes her sad, so she cries.
Just like I do, sometimes.
But I won't leave you this way. Because y'all know how it goes. Sure, we're kind of blue and maudlin for a bit, then somebody does something like strip naked and pee against the windowpane (I won't tell you who, let your imagination take it from there), and before you know it we're all falling off the couch in hysterics, laughing til we can't breathe except to hiccup. And if Grace goes up to her brother, says "Hey Cal, gimmee a lipper," and puckers up, 9 times out of 10 he's all over it and all is right with the world.
And betcha there will come a day when the Trollfaces of the world will think twice before they hurt my baby girl's feelings and make her face do that crumply thing that makes me feel like I've just taken a stomach punch from Mike Tyson...because they'll have had a look at her "little" brother. Don't mess with The Calvinator, my friends. He'll tear you a new one.
I should know--I'm his trainer.
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1 comment:
There are too many trollfaces and not enough lancelots!!
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