Let Her Be

My Pnut is a special little girl.  She is smart, kind, beautiful, imaginative and fun.  She is also exhausting.  From the moment she was born she has been my greatest challenge.  She wouldn't eat, wouldn't sleep, had to be held (or rocked or bounced...) all day and night, and she cried a lot.

As she grew up it became apparent that Pnut feels things more than most.  She is super sensitive and intense.  We often say she is over dramatic. I'm starting to think she's not "over" anything, she just feels things that deeply.  Not long ago I asked her to use her fork while she was eating.  You would have thought I punched her in the face.  She fell to the floor screaming.  She threw a fit for a good 25 minutes.  It turns out she had used that fork to eat broccoli. She finished the broccoli and was eating noodles.  She couldn't use the broccoli fork for the noodles.  Who knew?

It has taken me awhile, but I'm finally at the point where I'm trying to help her be the best Pnut she can be.  I'm no longer trying to make her who I think she should be.  If she can't use the same fork to eat different foods, she can get more forks.  Why does she need to only use one?

This brings me to our latest adventure.  Soccer.  We went for the first time last Saturday.  She hid behind me the whole time.  This is very un-pnut like.  She is many things, shy is not one of them.  So as I sit next to the field, with her cuddled up behind me, I couldn't understand what was wrong.  I wanted to scream.  I wanted everyone to know this was not my Pnut.  My pnut is outgoing and friendly.  It was a painful 25 minutes.  I was shocked at how upset I was.  I never said anything to her, but inside I was a mess.

Almost a week later and I'm struggling with how tomorrow will go.  I'm telling myself Pnut is her own person.  She is not an extension of me.  She is allowed to act (within reason) how she needs to act. If she wants to be shy, she gets to be shy.  Who am I to tell her she shouldn't be?

She is 5.  She is a little person, but she is still a person.  She deserves to be herself, whatever herself is.