A question about introductions
From one of my longest time readers:
How does Pennie introduce you? I mean here you were at her work picnic. Does she just explain the whole thing right away? I’m just curious how both you and Pennie decide how much information to give and how to give it, in an off the cuff situation? I’m not talking from the context of hiding something, rather the idea of how much does this person need to know?
I think that Pennie’s co-workers mostly know the story. She reads this blog but never comments (and doesn’t always have time to read every single little thing I write seeing as how I’m prolific, which is another way of saying that I fill up a lot of space with not always necessary words) but Pennie, feel free to chime in about this or correct me.
I do believe that most of Pennie’s friends/acquaintances know she has a daughter. When they ask about said daughter, I do believe that she says (depending on what she wants to share), “She doesn’t live with me.” And then shares more info as she wants to.
Anyway, she introduced us like this, “This is my daughter Maddie and this is Dawn, Brett and Noah.” She has also introduced me in the past as “My daughter’s mother.”
Madison wasn’t feeling great on Sunday and spent a lot of time trying to literally crawl up my legs and hide under my skirt, which was embarrassing both because I was afraid she was going to expose my most personal parts to the elements and because even though people are usually understanding about semi-rude 4-year olds, it still feels awkward to have one refusing to make eye contact. I kept trying to peel her off me and then feeling awkward about THAT, too. Really, it’s hard to be gracious when there’s a 4-year old flapping your above the knee skirt in the wind in an effort to play peek-a-boo because she’s working on a cold.
(sigh)
ANYWAY. That’s how she introduces us.
Ah, refusing eye contact. We’re trying to work on that. It’s not working particularly well.
I think you need to explain, in yet another post, how “my daughter” makes you feel. Because some people are going to read this post and balk.
Hmmm, I know the feeling of having to unpeel them from me, particularly Linton, who’s only a couple of months younger than Madison. When he’s insecure he always has to be touching a mole I have on my chest (not too far from my neck, luckily). Both boys refuse to make eye contact quite often and we’re also working on that… I find this one of the hardest parts of parenting, teaching, OK, almost forcing them to be nice and civil to people. Sigh.