Little girls are cute and small only to adults.  To one another they are not cute.  They are life-sized. 

-Margaret Atwood

Madalyn was especially bored at soccer practice last night, so when two 8ish year old's appeared, she was greatly encouraged.  She tugged on me, "look mama, two friends are here- I have someone to play with now!" and ran off to introduce herself.

Watching from a short distance, I thought maybe they didn't hear her when she said, "Hi!  My name's Madalyn, what's your name?"  They giggled and whispered with cupped hands, their bodies turned in to each other.  It was like there was a wall between them and Madalyn, like they couldn't hear her, nor knew she existed.  I waited a minute before interfering.  Madalyn spoke up, much louder, thinking, as I had, that perhaps they didn't hear her. 

Still, they giggled and whispered.  I strained to hear what they were saying but couldn't make it out, but what I COULD see, what was absolutely unmistakable, was the expression on Madalyn's sweet baby face.  I still couldn't articulate what I saw there- whether embarrassment, frustration, humiliation- but whatever it was it pained me.  Deep; struck a chord in a place I didn't know existed in me. 

I thought about walking over there and making them answer her, telling them that they were big and she was little and it would mean a lot if they could answer her... but by the time the thought had finished processing, she was off playing by Jack and his two-year-old, little soccer brother side-kick, Jaden.  She almost seemed as if she were trying to act content with their company just to save face because I'd never seen her play with them before.  But enough of it already, I was probably over-analyzing things and being a micro-managing soccer mom once more, so I would let it go... until that night.  When I tucked her into bed.

We sang and prayed and then she said, "Mom, my friends at soccer weren't very nice.  They laughed at me.  They said I talked funny.  They said 'Madalyn, she said Madalyn,' and laughed.  And they wouldn't answer me.  They wouldn't tell me their names.  They said 'she talks funny.'"

Should I just end it there?  I mean you already have an inkling of what ran through my veins- pure hatred, utter wrath, vindictive drive.  First, I wanted to rewind the clock and wring their proud little 8-year-old necks.  I wanted to snap their cupped, whispering fingers into two.  I wanted to yell, "She's THREE!  THREE!!!  Of course she talks funny! But what I want to know, is what kind of 8-year-old gets off on making fun of a baby??"

See, I've been somewhat prepared for this sort of moment with Evan, as sensitive as he is, and as different as he can be, but Madalyn is one tough cookie.  It's kind of like when I throw up.  (Just go with me here.)  I have an iron stomach (or is it stomach of steel- what's the saying?)  Anyway, by the time I feel the pain in my stomach, by the time whatever it is that's wrong inside is enough to make me nauseated- it's gonna be a rough, long night.  A LOUD, aggressive battle, an all-out war. 

That's how Madalyn is- she's tough- so it would take a lot to penetrate, and when it did, it would be painful. 

And it was.  For both of us.    

I kind of want to end this post here, because this is where it ends for me.  (Well, it's that, or me launching into all the stories about my encounters with mean girls... and my mother's... who bit all her charms off her charm bracelet, one by one, for a fat bully girl at her lunch table.)  But I feel that I owe you a happy ending.  A happy ending I don't have.

Of course I said a million things to her to try to sew together the tear they ripped in her sweet little heart- she named all the people who loved her and did think she talked well, she said her daddy and her Evan loved her and Jesus was in her heart and loved her- that He died for her (she said these things all on her own,) then together we talked about how those girls were missing out because she's such a cool kid, how she needed to make sure to never treat anyone that way because doesn't it hurt, and about how Jesus says she is fearfully and wonderfully made- but none of that helped. Me.  

My words sounded, to me, like melted butter.  Nothing of substance, no steel wool stitching to mend the giant gash in both of our hearts.  I felt utterly ill-equipped to protect her from the world in that moment, and also highly aware of the reality that I had no resources for fixing her wounds.  I could only leave it.  I could only pray that God would use that pain to draw her to Himself, and pray that He would use it to make her a better vessel for spreading His love, and then I have to leave it.

I guess in a way that's what this post is; a place to dump it at His feet, an intentional way of saying, "You see it. It matters to You, so You can have it." 

But it still hurts.

She loves pretending to be a bride right now, ever since my cousin's wedding.  She drags me in stores at the mall just to see "white bride shoes like Scottie's."  She will ask things like, "when I grow up I can get married?  And I can marry Evan and be a bee-yoo-tiful bride just like Scottie?"  

Labels: Madalyn, milestones, pictures