HER BFF

A. is an aggressive friend-finder!

This is just week two of kindergarten and she already has a "best friend." Mind you, it's not the little girl she played with all summer and whom we requested be in her class. It's a brand-new friend, and it's all about her, all the time.

Of course I like that she's making new friends quickly, but I also feel more is going on here. I feel she grabs onto other children with desperation, as though she can't quite trust that her bond with them will form naturally, over time. That old friend she already has? Not enough. She needs a new one in place, her  insurance policy against loneliness -- or being alone.

Whether she's on the playground or at the park, A. is always casing the joint, on the look-out for someone to play with. And it doesn't matter whether she knows the other person. "Mommy, can I play with that boy right there?" she asked me at the park yesterday, pointing to a child with his family.  It's endearing -- up to a point. Honestly, her willingness, I'd say her need to go up to a stranger and say, "Will you play with me?" makes me uncomfortable. "Sweetie, we don't know them," I said in response to her plea.

Some of this is about my wanting to avoid the possibility of rejection, which she has already experienced. In her first year with us,  little girls often said "no" to her requests to play with them. One even told her, "You're not a girl, you're a boy, so you can't play with us." Her hair was short at the time, and yes her feelings got hurt.

Lots of time, it work out fine, and she has fun with her new-found friends. But I also know I'm watching a little girl in desperate need of validation through another child's willingness to play with her.  I want her to be okay playing alone sometime too.

Alas, for a child who has been taken away from her home twice in her young life, she needs to control what she can control. And I guess I need to accept that.