Chloe: Can you please play with me?
Rise Leo: What? Sorry, kid, but i'm kinda busy and...—
Chloe: if you don't play with me I'm going to cry. Mr. Turtle doesn't like it when I'm sad, you'll make him mad. I know how much you find him very cool like i do, i bet you would hate seeing him be mad because you made a sweet little girl cry.
Rise Leo: yousonuva— Fine!
Chloe: Yay!!
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the 12yo i babysit made me a little book for my birthday featuring, among other things, a short narration of a typical afternoon--what it's like for me to pick her up from school from her perspective. and i just.. i'm a mess. if this wasn't already my favorite time of the day..
I know how today will go. I will slog through the day and no matter how good it is, the afternoon will allow aimlessness to creep into my mind.
I will be shoved by a sea of evermoving students at the end of the day. Ideas about everything and nothing all at once will weigh my shoulders down. And with each step I will descend into a state of empty fog. And with each overheard word my heart will grow a little heavier.
But then, I will look up to a woman, standing in a corner of the sidewalk. I will see the chipped black paint of the waist high gate and behind it I will see yellow high tops rooted firmly on the cobblestone, strawberry blonde waves and a splash of freckles.
I will meet blue eyes and my feet will gain energy to keep moving.
You will begin to pull out one earbud to listen. (Thank you,) You always seem willing to listen.
But before you manage to pull the earbud away I will be stumbling, and I know that with a "hey kiddo" I will be in the embrace of Julia.
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When I was 8 I fell on the road outside my school and skinned my elbow and my mother yelled at me for crying and said that other kids get hurt worse and don't cry. I was so confused and in so much pain.
Anyway I had to be taken to the ER.
Can we stop telling little kids that they're pain is invalid and they're overreacting. The other thing that sticks out to me from that day is the ER doctor being so gentle with me and giving me candy.
Maybe the wound wasn't "too bad" but I was eight. I was a child.
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