Nora is officially 6 months old. Crazy! Where did the time go? She's not trying to crawl yet, which is fine. Six months is a little early for that anyhow. But she is sitting up pretty well. She can balance for quite a while as long as she doesn't try to look up at a standing adult. She tips pretty easily, so we make sure one of us is close enough to catch her or she's surrounded by pillows. (Our living room is carpeted, but the floor is still pretty hard and the carpet is old enough that it doesn't provide a whole lot of padding.)
I took Nora in for her 6 month well-child check yesterday. She weighs 18 lbs 11 oz. She's 27 inches long. 90th percentile for each. I'm not surprised. Each of our girls has stayed at the top of the charts until they start crawling and moving more. Then they thin out a bit. She's healthy and hitting all the milestones at the appropriate times. Dr. Adamczyk told me again I'm a great mom and my daughter is beautiful and perfect. (I adore him. He tells me this with each girl and it really helps me feel like I'm doing things well. As a young mom, that's been important for my confidence as a parent.)
This week is a bit nuts. Monday I worked and then came home to do a very long cardio WO. Tuesday I took Nora to her check up. This afternoon I work again (thankfully today is a rest day, so no late night WO). Tomorrow morning Mia goes back to the allergist (not sure if we'll need to go again soon, since she hasn't broken out in hives since before we went a month ago). Friday should be quieter, but Steve is going to a movie with his friends that night (he and Jared are wonderfully considerate husbands though and planned the outing for after bedtime). Saturday night we have a fall festival at the church and the girls will get to play games and decorate pumpkins. I was hoping for at least one quiet night soon, but the girls will love it so it will be worth it.
Now, this topic has been on my mind a lot lately and it honestly deserves its own post. But given my week and weekend, this will have to do for now. Bullying. It's been all over the news and media with all the suicides related to it recently. For the most part, I escaped bullying. I fell into the category of being one of the smart kids who wasn't too weird, quiet but normal, not quite cool but got along with everyone well. I was fine with that. I had good friends, I had boyfriends, I had activities to do, life was pretty good. And then I remember 8th grade. That was a miserable year for me. I had history after lunch with a teacher who was nice but clueless about what happened in his class. There were three girls in that class who, for whatever reason, didn't like me. Two of them had the right last names and so, mean or not, they were popular. The third wanted to be popular and had it out for me. She was the first person I met in Evart who was my age. We were friends, until she ditched me on the first day of school in 6th grade. She spread rumors about me but never went beyond that. Until 8th grade. She told the other two girls that I was spreading rumors about them. I wasn't. But they believed it and made that class miserable for me. They'd make comments about me, making sure I heard, wrote insults on my papers, and did all kinds of things to intimidate me. It got to the point that my stomach would knot up before that class. I'd feel cold and clammy and nauseous. I went home sick a lot that year. Teaches waived my absences since I was a good student. I wanted to switch schools. Monday was my favorite day of the week because I was in an advanced program and missed that class. Even thinking about it now brings back the cold terror I felt. That was 14 years ago.
The worst of it was when they wrote me a note. They threatened to wipe "that Tinkerbell smile off my face" if I didn't stop spreading rumors. How was I supposed to stop doing something I hadn't done?! Terrified, I gave the note to my parents. They called all three sets of parents. Popular girl #1 had the sweetest mom. She apologized up and down to my parents and promised her daughter would be punished. But her daughter ran that house and I know she never got in trouble for it. Popular girl #2 later bragged that her mom told her to do whatever she wanted and too bad for me if I couldn't defend myself. They were kinda white-trash people. The third girl's parents knew my parents. They sat all of us down to talk it out. I don't doubt she got into trouble for it. I don't remember a lot of what happened after that, but I think she backed off and without her fueling the fire, the whole thing died out. Thank God!
Looking back, I think the third girl just wanted to be accepted and bashing me was her way in. Different adults assured me she was jealous of me. I don't know. All I know is that we mostly avoided each other in high school and the times I've seen her since then, we've been sociable. She's single but has been successful in her business. In her early 20's, she bought a salon and has been running it successfully for 5-6 years now. I am happy for her. I would be lying if I said I like her now, but I understand now that she hurt me because she was somehow hurting. And I do wish her well in life.
Popular girl #1 was never kind. In 9th grade she switched schools because she wanted to play tennis and she considered herself too good for Evart after that. I don't think I saw her more than once or twice after that, which was fine by me. I'm guessing she married a rich guy and is still chasing popularity and material wealth, which sounds like a sad existence to me. Neither of those bring happiness.
Popular girl #2 and I avoided each other too. I don't think I've seen her since high school. My guess would be that she either still lives in Evart or a different small town and never went to college. If she got married, she's divorced by now, possibly with kids. She's as mean as ever. Why would I guess that? That's her mom's story and I think the apple didn't fall far from that tree.
Thinking about it and typing it out, I got that cold uneasiness in the pit of my stomach all over again. It's been 14 years! And I was fortunate that it was short-lived and they never physically did anything to me. Can you imagine the damage they could have done otherwise? Bullying is horrible. And with Facebook and Twitter and everything else now, it could be so much worse and inescapable, even at home. It needs to stop. I pray my girls never have to endure that. And even more, I pray we teach them to value others so much that they would never, ever inflict that on anyone else. Society-wide, I'm not sure how to stop it, but I think celebrities speaking out against it and drawing awareness to it is a great start. (For the record, God loves ALL people. As His children, we're supposed to love all people too. God will judge everyone for what they've done, and yes, that includes you. Alienating people for their choices is not loving them. Judging them is not loving them either, and it's not your job.) In my family and circle of influence, I can teach my kids to love other people and do good when and where they can. Thoughts?
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