Free to be Bella

I don’t know how parents do it.  I know I AM a parent and I SHOULD know how to do it but I don’t.  My parents had it easy because I am nowhere near as smart as Bella.  Today for instance she started quoting the Constitution and telling me how she was an American Citizen and all about her rights and how women can do anything men can do.  She gave me this speech because I told her not to play in the mud.  Of course the only reason she wanted to play in the mud was because I said it was something only boys would do (in my defense at the time only two boys were doing it).  

Another time I asked her do her homework and she started crying.   Then her feelings were hurt because her dad told her that her feet were dirty.  Something was definitely up.  She was acting like an over emotional teenager except that she is only nine!! How can that be?  I thought buying the expensive organic milk with no growth hormones was supposed to keep this from happening!  Could she be hitting puberty so early?  Well, let me enlighten you.  From my exhaustive google search of 1 or 2 web sites it appears there is something called “pre” puberty.  Apparently it can happen 3-4 years before real puberty.  I was totally blindsided. 

After the news sunk in, I found myself relieved it wasn’t something worse.   My girl has been up against some big stuff in her short years and she can handle a little (or a lot) of raging hormones.  And the best thing about puberty is I don’t feel responsible for the bad behavior!  When young kids act bad it’s always the parent’s fault – too much attention, not enough nurturing, not following through with discipline or being too strict.   It’s too much to figure out.  Bella has caught on that I am confused.  When I tell her she didn’t do something I told her to do she starts crying and says “stop making me feel bad!”  It’s brilliant!  It plays right into my bad parenting fears!  On the plus side I am really proud of her people reading skills.

Surely some of our problems come from Cystic Fibrosis being added into the mix.  There are a ton of medical issues to handle but just as many mental ones.  Turns out Bella keeps a lot of stuff inside.  She doesn’t like being different and worries people will think she is weird because she has CF.  She often resorts to playing the role of the mischief-y goof ball, but in my opinion she doesn’t let people see the real her.  A few months ago God lined up some things that broke down that wall and showed her that people do care.

It started with me seeing a little video that tells kids about CF.  I sent it to the teacher and asked if they could show it.  It took the teacher about three weeks to get approval from the principal.  During that time Bella started having some pain in her lungs.  This had never happened before and she was pretty scared.  She had to stop and rest during long walks and her face would get flushed.  We had to make some decisions fast.  The week they got approval to show the video ended up being 2 days before Bella went into the hospital for her first course of IV Antibiotics since she was 18 months old.  She said that the scene in the video where the two kids are in the hospital with an IV made it easier to tell the class where she was going.  I had to watch the video again because I didn’t remember that scene.  It never occurred to me at the time it would be relevant.

I wonder how nervous she was sitting in class watching the video with her classmates.  She was facing all her fears head on.  How many people go through something like that at 9?   Afterward she said everyone got up and started writing on the white board encouraging things like “Cure CF” and “Go Bella”.  What a relief she must have felt.   I know when I picked her up from school she was beaming!  That is hardly the attitude you would expect of a child about to go into the hospital.   She was accepted and understood and that made her stronger and less afraid.  What an amazing thing to witness.  How kind of God to take her hardest moment and turn it into her biggest blessing. 

Of course the lovable goof ball came back, after all that is a part of her too.  She will probably fall back into that comfortable place again when it suits her.  But now she has another comfortable place to go to, that moment in the classroom surrounded by friends who really knew her and loved her.

Click on this link to watch the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMAOEOmLoUE&feature=youtu.be