No? Me either!

Stacia’s teacher called a little while ago. Apparently she had a minor outburst at school. This was normally not worthy of a phone call as the teacher has sufficient behavior management plans. However, since she had recently heard about our premature baby she wanted to talk about how Stacia was handling things.

Stacia shared the story of her new baby sister during “community circle” at school this morning. She was full of details about her new sister who’s been in the hospital for 5 or 6 weeks (she couldn’t remember). She wanted to name her Diamond, but I wanted to name her Heather, after myself. She doesn’t have a name yet though because we don’t know if she’ll make it.

Mrs. Cox was, at first, thinking this was an elaborate story so she took her aside to ask questions later. The story continued all about the tubes the baby is hooked to so she can breath and her arm that looks kind of funny because it wasn’t finished growing. Every question Mrs. Cox asked, Stacia had an answer to. She was planning to call this evening to see if there was anything she could do help— totally snowed by Stacia’s story!

Where do they come up with this stuff? A story this elaborate had to come from somewhere, but we neither know anyone with a preemie or can remember a show she has seen about the situation. Why would a 6 year old have such elaborate details on premature babies? And, how in the world can I get her to stop telling tales?

Spencer thinks it’s a ploy for attention. I don’t know how—short of cloning myself— I could spend more time with her. I stay at home with the girls, I volunteer at school, I lead her Brownie troop, and he coaches her soccer team. I try to spend one-on-one time with each of my girls too.

Sometimes I get the feeling that no matter what I do or how hard I try I’m just doing this parenting thing all wrong!