A little reflecting

This blog is a great way to keep track of what our family has done.  Every 2 years or so I print it up in book form and the kids love to read those books.  Little brother has been requesting this as his story the last few nights, so we've been doing lots of looking back.  We happened upon this post and this one and it really had me thinking.  Our little sister used to be ready to take on the world.  She was quite the brave little soul - ready to plunge ahead into whatever life offered and didn't necessarily need me to hold her hand.  But then there was this incident.  This is the one where the PTA held a fun run and separated all the kindergarteners from their teachers.  They had the kindergarteners go last, and then excused them to go home at the end of school before the teachers could make sure all the kids were accounted for.  Added to that was the chaos of the 6th grade being let out a few minutes early that day.  So while all the confused little kindergarteners were trying to go back into the building, the big sixth graders were pouring out.  Our little sister got confused and felt lost, so she did exactly what she's supposed to do when she's lost.  She stayed put.  It was about 24 minutes after school before I finally found her out on the field behind the school, sobbing her little eyes out.  I had a chat with our awesome principal the following Monday, and then I had to walk little sister to her classroom.  It made me sad that she was scared when she hadn't been on the first day.  That was a couple years ago now, but something dawned on me when reading those other posts about her just marching out into the world ready to take it on.  That 24 minutes changed her completely.  She is now pretty timid and clingy.  Last year, I had to stop volunteering in her class because she had meltdowns every time I went in.  She was scared she wouldn't be able to find me again.  I am the room mom this year, but her teacher only needs me to help with parties.  Which I think will all have to be at the end of school so that I don't leave her teacher with a sobbing mess.  If things get confusing, she shuts down into a little crying mess.  Every once in a while, we can get that brave little girl back.  She needed to pay tithing yesterday, and we had told her to go give it to the Bishop up on the stand.  She was scared to do it herself, but we encouraged her that she could do it on her own.  She took a deep breath and did it.  It helps that she knows our Bishop and that he is just the nicest guy around.  She was pretty proud of herself.  *sigh* Not a whole lot we can do about it, really.  And not really a point to this post except that it has hit me how much one little incident changed my little girl.  It makes me a little sad that she's not as outgoing and willing to share her crazy/hilarious/wacky personality with everyone as she used to be.  Love my cute girl!