The school nurse called yesterday to tell me my daughter had touched a lightbulb and blistered her finger. "She wasn't crying," the nurse said. "I was kind of surprised. It looked like it hurt."
I thought about her falling down over and over on roller skates, how when she takes a tumble off her bike or scooter she brushes herself off when I expect to hear wails. "I'm not," I said. "Lately she's been shockingly brave about getting hurt."
But I wasn't thinking about burned fingers.
There's a new girl in my daughter's kindergarten class. A bright, new shiny girl, and my daughter's former best school friend told the little angel she likes my girl *thismuch* (fingers held two inches apart) and the new girl THIS MUCH (arms spread wide).
I first heard about this at ballet while helping the little angel get dressed. As she stood there in her pink tights and white ballet slippers, she seemed so small. When I asked what she said when her friend dropped that bomb, she role-played a confused shrug and a sincere, "Really? You really only like me that much?"
I reminded her she has three friends at ballet, and she scampered off to play with them, but I sat and turned the scenario over and over in my head, knowing there was nothing in the world I could do about it but offer support at home.
That night, in the bathtub, I told her about my childhood and how my very best friend was best friends with someone else in preschool, how friendships grow and change over time. My girl looked at me with solemn eyes.
"Mommy," she said. "I don't really want to talk about this now."
We moved on to other things, and for the first time, I felt that little wall going up around her thoughts, creating that private space in which she can make her own decisions and feel her own emotions without showing them to me. I know it is right and good that she have this place. I'm relieved she's able to self-soothe through burned fingers and mean girls. I'm impressed with her five-year-old coping skills.
But I would be lying if I said it wasn't hard to watch those walls rise.
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