Zander's Inside Voice

My youngest will be 10 in December. We’ve had a couple of strange moments over the past year that I can’t really work through in my mind. It feels like something deeper is happening with her and I don’t like that she’s so quiet about it.

The first instance was last December. I found a really cool holiday ornament that you could add pictures to so you can memorialize someone. I am completely not threatened by the fact that my wife was married before and her husband died. I don’t care what of his stays up or goes up, that there are pictures of him around anywhere, or that she talks about him a lot. I knew him through her social media because I have been friends with him for so long. I decided that I wanted to make one of these ornaments, so I scoured his and hers social media for pictures that I knew she liked and pictures that embodied his spirit.

I often forget that my youngest is logged in to my apple id on her ipad, which means sometimes she has my pictures appear in her photos. The day after I chose all the pictures and ordered the ornament, she asked my wife why pictures of her husband were on the ipad. Mortified, I was like GET OVER HERE and I showed her what I had ordered. I then started deleting the pictures from her ipad until I got to a couple of pictures of her friend. There was nothing indecent or bad, but she grabbed her ipad away from me in a way that told me that there was something going on here. I took the ipad back and asked her what the big deal was. She was worried I would think she had a crush on her friend. Uhhhh…that thought didn’t cross my mind at all, but after she said that I was like huh?? Why would I think that?

Then tonight she sort of stomped off with a lollipop that she intended to take up to her room. That’s not allowed and I made her sit back on the table. It was a really weird exchange and I was confused. Later on, I sort of cornered her by the laundry area and talked to her about it. I asked her what was wrong and she just kept shrugging. I asked her some pretty direct questions and I could see there was avoidance. And so I felt a little lost. I don’t want to be all up in her business. She can have private thoughts and feelings that she doesn’t tell me, but I am worried about her. I’m not sure what all of this is.

So I pointed to her heart and said “I don’t care who is in there. It is my job to listen and let you show me who you are. I don’t care if you are MIss Poopoo Head, Miss Tiffany (not her name), or Mr Tiffany, I love YOU for who you tell me you are, no matter what. There is nothing that will change my love for you.” Of course she laughed at MIss Poopoo Head and Mr Tiffany, but I hope she got the message. I am here for her to talk to no matter what, and I won’t tell anyone if she doesn’t want me to. There is something going on in there, something that makes her scared to tell me, and something that I hope she will eventually tell me. But for now I guess the only thing I can do is keep assuring her that I love her and nothing will ever change that.