This may seem like a small thing. If she'd had a normal upbringing until now, it would be. But it seems her life is fraught with disappointment. She has her dad, whom she adores, and she has her grandparents (my parents), and she has me. My mother is basically a second mother to her, and I'm the crazy aunt who comes into town once in a while to visit with her. But it seems we're always late on everything. (Except for my mother, who is the most anal retentive person on earth, and I mean that in a good way. I wish I inherited more of that. A lot more.)
I spend a lot of my time with her when I'm home, and I helped her set up an e-mail account, which I'm hoping will enable us to keep in more frequent contact. I vow to do better by that kid. She deserves it.
6 comments:
I know how you feel. I had great plans for things I was going to do for my niece. Some of them actually happened. Time always seemed to get away from me. Still does unfortunately.
And look at how many blog posts I've missed lately - here and everywhere else. Time. There's just not enough of it.
Everything clamors for our time, and it's hard not to listen with so many voices shouting at us all day long.
You love your niece. Focus on that and not on what might have/should have been.
I hate it when I don't do something like that that I planned to do. There's no point beating yourself up about it though: it just shows that you're human.
I wish I was an aunt. My Beloved doesn't have siblings and my sister has never had children and is past the age for it now so I shall never be an auntie. Oh well.
Your niece is lucky to have loads of love - and an email account, set up by her sweet Auntie.
And to get to have the camp experience - that's a growing up rite of passage thing that works wonders for a person, whether or not they love it - so cool for her.
I get what you're saying - she's having some obstacles to overcome.
For girls, I'd say the tough years for obstacle-lives are between 12 and 16, when they're comparing themselves to everyone anyway, obstacles or not, and only the smallest subgroup of them don't panic because they're sure they don't fit in. Mine both went through that - and it was hell on earth for a while, both times, because I was a worrier.
So please try not to worry, just love her and make aure she knows it, and do cool stuff like help her with her email stuff and have her come out and visit you in CA (girls love to brag about where they go on vacation, and who their relatives know - remember??)...
and don't give her any hints that she should feel put-upon, or she'll take them, ya know?
Anyway, this is my advice. I just reread this and I sound like I think I'm sage-like. Ewwww.
as you know, with kids they're soon no longer kids...
Aw, thanks everybody!
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