i can't fix it and it hurts like hell

Lily has always been a popular kid. She has lots of friends but that said, she doesn't have a best friend. She is bubbly, smart, friendly and very very outgoing. She is also very very smart. Yes, I know I mentioned it already but it deserves a second go around. She is in classes above her grade level so the kids are older and more mature than her. The maturity difference is HUGE. She is mature but obviously she isn't going to be as mature as kids 2 years older than her. At swimming she swims with kids older than her In everything she does she is surrounded by older kids. She gets on with them just fine but when it comes to parties or sleep overs or getties she is left out.

Yesterday we went over to a friends house. When we got back she saw on Instagram that one of her close friends had had some swimteam friends over. She thought she was in that that inner sanctum. She was left out. AGAIN. She pretended she wasn't hurt.

I knew better, after I put her to bed I made a stealth attack about 20 minutes later and found her quietly crying. Oh MY WORD. break. my. heart. and. rip. it. out.

We talked it through. She says she just wants to know what it is like to have a friend. She doesn't like living here cos everyone speaks Spanish as their first language and we don't. Truth be told, I don't like it either for that reason. It makes it hard to makes friends. We don't share customs with Hispanics. My heart breaks for her. She wants so badly to move somewhere else. I can't tell her I do too. That won't help anything although I think she knows I want to live near my family.

I told her her school is very small and once she gets to high school a whole new world will open up for her. But until then I have a kid who doesn't have a friend to call her own and there is no way of knowing that she will get one in high school cos those kids will already have friends.

THIS SUCKS.

Ideas welcome.

how big is your, ish?

I have been friends with Amy for about 20 years. I didn't realise this until today when she mentioned it to someone. I was about to say it hasn't been that long when I did a little mental arithmetic and decided to remain quiet. I know her well, very well and love spending time with her now that we have kids we don't spend much time together. She has boys, I have girls and their interests are very different.

I received a text the other day:
Marcos Bday celebration Sunday.
Please come over. Boys, f-ball, food.
Our house 2 ish.

I said we would be there. The girls guessed they wouldn't be the only girls and they adore Nick and Marco so they really didn't care anyway. We left our house at 2.40 ish. yes, I know what the invitation said but like I said, I know Amy. When we got to the house Amy's car wasn't in the driveway, in fact there were no cars in the driveway. Uh oh, had I got the wrong day? We drove around the corner and I sent a text.

She called me back. Nope she didn't move just in her typical style she was still at the store! We were an hour late and we were the second people to arrive! OMG...she gets worse. I drove back around the corner and we arrived at the same time.

That's a big ish!

The girls were happy to meet another girl. They played with her, did some fishing, played football, did some cheerleading. played lacrosse, and generally acted like boys for many many hours. As Happy As Can Be. We, the grown ups, talked ate and drank. Oh and we laughed, oh did we laugh. It's funny but being out alone is nothing new to me, it doesn't feel odd or uncomfortable because even when I was married his schedule never ever aligned with mine so it was normal for me to do things alone with the kids and most of our friends expect me to be alone.

as the boys set up lacrosse the girls practiced their football

This girl has quite the arm

waiting for fish

in that tub are 3 fish

washing the fish.

Lily kicking the football.

I really didn't need to see this. The 48 frogs fished from the lake. 

Happy 11th birthday Marco

A spot of cheer leading.
Holy COW

I just happened to look outside to check on the girls when I saw Rosie flying through the air and falling pretty hard. She wasn't fazed so I just stood, unnoticed, watching. They did the same thing again, she was a flyer. Dear Gawd, this wasn't going to end well. I put a stop to it, much to their chagrin.

We had a really lovely afternoon and evening. Amy never allows the normal time constraints of school nights to interfere with her good times so we were out pretty late. But when your invitations come with an -ish and you know that the -ish is for real and it means please be an hour late things are going to run later than normal.