Stella

Expecting. That’s the word we use. “You’re expecting.” A child. A baby. A daughter. But - when Stella was born I was stunned by it. I over expected the pain. But I under expected just about everything else.  I don’t really know what I thought would happen. Stella was my first baby. And, I was kind of a young mother. Not super young, but naïve? Once a child is born - that’s when the real expecting begins. It’s like we never stop expecting things for our children. We expect they’ll fall and get hurt. We expect the things they learn will be painful. We expect their new friend will be a jerk. We expect they will do things they regret. And that is the trouble I’m having now. Stella just finished 5th grade. She’s about to go into middle school. Stella’s starting middle school. I’m expecting middle school to be terrible for Stella. OK - Maybe a little fun too, mostly Just terrible and I don’t want her to be stunned by it. Because I was. I was stunned. And I’m kind of worried that she has no idea what’s coming. So I’ve started sitting her down to try to talk to her about all of these things. To try and give her some idea of what to expect from this next stage of her life.

‍

‍