Guidance

Once a week, Lauren's class has a guidance period, where they meet as a group with their guidance counselor and discuss some subject. This week, they made collages and talked about people in the hospital.

"Mrs M said that people in the hospital probably feel a little bit sad and lonely," she said. She took out her collage, a sun peeking out over the horizon colored bright yellow. "So I made this for Juliana."

"That was very thoughtful."

"Can we mail it to her?"

"Sure." I said. "Did you talk with Mrs M about Juliana being in the hospital?"

"No."

"You can if you want to..."

"I can talk to anyone about anything I want to," she replied.

"Yep. I was just wondering if you told Mrs M you were making that for..."

"I said it was for my Auntie and that she's in the hospital."

"Ok."

Later at bedtime, we talked about her trip this weekend to my in-laws to spend an overnight with her sister. She's not thrilled about it because, as she says, "I don't get to do everything I want to do when my sister is there" which we talked about a bit, but also, "The stairs are very slippery there and I worry my sis might fall down them. I fell down them when I was littler and it hurt."

While it's sweet she thinks it's her job to look out for and protect her sister, I saw too much of my own situation reflected in this - it's a big scary world she's too little to actually save her sister from, so she's powerless to do anything but worry that the people in power will do their jobs, and she doesn't have a lot of confidence in them.