On being 4 1/2

Ah Will – my sweet, sensitive boy. It can be so hard being almost 5. He is having a little bit of a rough time at school these days. His super best friend has found the company of other kids in class and doesn’t always want to play just with Will anymore. This is heartbreaking to my little boy. He is a really big hearted kid who makes sure everyone gets invited to join in with whatever he and his little crew are doing. But conversely, he gets SO crushed when one of his friends tell him they don’t want to play with him that day. And oh, its just the beginning of all of this and kids, they can be so mean. I see things in him and they make me so proud and worry for him all at the same time. Dan and I are trying to explain the whole friend thing and how you don’t have to play with the same people all the time, and can still be friends with them. He just seems insecure in it already. Dan and I were talking about it and in looking back I think there were times that both of us really felt that way. I hope as gets older he deals with it more like Dan did than how I did.

Growing up Dan would deal with that insecurity by just becoming the “cruise director” and making his own group rather than trying to fit into one already in existence. He’s good at it – it’s very easy to jump on board with what he has planned. I spent too much time feeling like I never quite fit into the group I was a part of. Not in a huge way, just slightly off and always just a little insecure that they would figure out that I was seriously not enough (cool, smart, talented, pretty, whatever) and everything would unravel from there.

Eventually I got to where Dan is though – people have told me that I kind of “collect” good people into my life and then share them with each other so everyone can be friends. This is probably fairly accurate, if a little cheesy. But I know I don't have those same feelings of insecurity the same way I used to. I think what I mean to say is that I know that I have found “My People”. These people that are my people… some I have known my whole life, others for only a little while. Some I talk to almost every day and some I’ve gotten the opportunity to reconnect with after many years. They live here in town and in Iowa and Minnesota and Michigan and New Mexico…but they are in my life and are my people. They have been with me for of some of the best and worst times in my life. I am so very lucky to have that. And I hope that Will can find that without too much heartache along the way. I would love to spare him some of that heartache, even if I know I can’t.

However, right now he is still my 4 1/2 year-old Will. And despite some of the current difficulties, the kid cracks me up. When we were at the zoo the other day he walked up to Dan and said:

"Daddy, Polar bears eat people. But I tell you what, I would NOT eat people”

Good to know he’s got that figured out at least.