The trials of friends

I love the fact that Katie is such a loyal friend, but when she gives that loyalty to a child that doesn't give back it just kills me to watch it.

This has been the case with a little girl named Mai, who was inseparable from Katie in Kindergarten but grew more and more distant as 1st grade wore on. She began to ignore Katie's invitations for playdates and to exclude her when playing with other girls. Katie clearly became the fall back friend.

I have had many conversations with Kate about how she should expect to be treated by friends, especially since she tries so hard to do right by others. In the case of Mai, this has always fallen on deaf ears.

So, I shouldn't have been surprised that when, after not hearing from Mai since September (Katie called several times as school started but Mai never returned the calls), Mai suddenly called last night to ask when Katie's birthday party would be. Katie immediately gave her all the details.

I do credit Kate with growth for at least asking Mai why she hadn't returned the calls, but she was so happy to hear from her that she accepted the "I forgot" excuse very readily. [OK, so the kid does have a promising future as a Bush political appointee, but still...]

Once again, I mentioned the hurt feelings and treatment she has received but Katie tells me that she still chooses to be friends with Mai (her exact words). Worse, I can't even talk to the mother because she doesn't speak English.

I know Katie has to walk through this herself and learn what she needs to learn from it but it really pisses me off!

Thank God for friends who let me vent over the phone after the kids went to bed! [Thank you Julie and Jennifer.] I know that the more I stick my nose in this relationship, the tighter Katie will hold onto it--can't imagine where she got that trait from!--but I will need to make lots of calls to friends in order to keep my mouth shut.

OK, thanks for hanging in there for that rant.

In other news:
Zack lost another tooth so now he has a blank on either side of his two front teeth. He has done everything to earn his Wolf Cub badge and he'll move onto Bears next year. He is very proud of fixing his Ravenclaw transformer all by himself, without the directions--a feat of engineering completely beyond my skill set.

Katie is in three dances in her recital this year. She has earned 8 Brownie Try-Its (badges), 3 patches and a few pins and she will be going camping for the first time this weekend--yes, rain is expected. She has a tooth holding on by the narrowest margin and I can't believe it's still in. She is creating artwork by the ream and has an interest in cooking and gardening and has been looking into both so she can do it herself.

More on math in another post, but we have made it through all that we need to do the CAT tests, which we will start up in the next couple of days. After that, our official school year is over, although our day-to-day lives won't seem much different.

Some of what we've done since my last post:
--The Boston trip:
*We got to spend a lot of time with our nephew/cousin Pascal Simon (pass-kal-see-moan), who is adorable at 10 months old and I couldn't believe how friendly he was, considering he didn't know us at all.
*We took the baby to Concord for the day, so his parents could finish packing for their move to Switzerland and got to talk about the Shot Heard Round the World, saw a cool cemetery and nice shops.
*Went up to Gloucester to a great restaurant called the White Rainbow to hear Mike Leggio play. I noted that the pianist curled his fingers just like their teacher keeps demonstrating. Late night for the kids but we all loved it. Nice when the food AND the music are both terrific.
*We spent a day at gma and gpas which had it's ups and downs but for the most part was a nice time for Katie and Zack and they got to show off their piano playing.
*We met with some friends for breakfast and walked around Boston Commons in the freezing cold for a while.
*We stopped in NYC for the afternoon to have lunch with more friends and to walk around my old neighborhood, which now sports cafes and boutique hotels, but I suspect you can still hear the shots from Chinatown and that there are still mice in the 5 floor walkup I used to live in and the intercom still doesn't work.

Katie and Zack still had Spanish class, Brownies, Cub Scouts, piano, swim, library, nature class, and Friday group.

We went to Riverbend park with the young Xplorers group, a Faerie festival--which was nice but too far away for me at 2 hours each way, a Heathen HSers meet up, and some other places I've forgotten about.

Also, Uncle Phil came through on his way down to SC. Everyone was very excited to see him and the kids showed off all their latest projects and favorite things.

I'll be working for a few weeks this month and again in July and so far it has blended in well with everything else, although I will be relieved when the testing is over and I can let the structure go for a while.

Well, now we're all caught up. More on Math later. ;-)