why did those incidents affect me

1) A few weeks ago (in fact during the summer), I visited a friend and we all went to the pool. She has 2 kids too: a 5-year old boy and a 3 1/2-year old girl. As you all know Rachel acts "shy" at the beginning of an encounter and of course she did it again that time and did not want to speak French and insists on speaking English. My friend who is French speaking has succeeded to have her 2nd child speak French all the time and made the following comment which hurt me "leave me Rachel for a week and she will speak French".
She could certainly take her for a week if she really wants to ...
I did not remind her that her daughter went to a Spanish daycare and could not practice that language at home since they do not speak it, that she speaks French with her husband (I don't), that her 2 French speaking girlfriends are always around and serve almost as surrogate mothers, that her 5-year old used to speak English with his sister less than 2 years ago. Yossi said I was too sensitive and maybe I am but I felt that I was being criticized in my role of mother. I made peace with those feelings and feel that it is more important for Rachel to express herself freely in the language she feels most comfortable with. Yes she does mix French words with her English and yes I do keep asking her the meaning of English words/sentences and yes I keep speaking French to them, and yes I did switch from English to French when I speak now to the dog, and yes the girls understand everything I say in French and yes even the dog does understand the basic commands in French.
It feels good to have written it, thank you for giving me that opportunity.

2) Secondly last week-end we went to Emily's birthday party. I meant to arrive there early to give Rachel some time to get out of her initial shyness. But of course I had misplaced the directions, had to download them from the web at the last moment, left later than wanted, got lost and you can imagine my state of mind when we arrived... and Rachel simply refused to participate in the activities with the majority of the little boys/girls she didn't know. I almost turned around and went home, I warned and threatened Rachel that if she did not participate in the activities we would go home. She took my bluff and said: ok, let's go home. My friend Kathleen asked me to stay and we did. Every 2 minutes, one of the many "leaders" would come to Rachel and asked her to join them, which did not work at all. Rachel simply played on her own trying every piece of equipment. I simply felt bad and I could not carry a conversation with my friend Kathleen since I wanted to make sure that Rachel would not break anything, what a great time I had too. Rachel did enjoy her time and was happy afterwards to sit at the table eating pizza and birthday cake and be in front of her friend Emily but Emily was too busy with her friends from the gym and from school to notice her. (That reminds me that Rachel did the same to Emily when she came to play with her and that we all went to the park and Rachel played with our neighbor's daughter who was there and I had to make sure that Emily was not left behind. Emily did ask "isn't Rachel my friend anymore?)

Why did that affect me? Maybe because we did decide not to register Rachel in school this year and knowing that perhaps school would have been good for her.
When I told the story to the lady at the daycare (she loves the lady at the daycare), she simply said: oh yes Rachel has her character and knows what she wants and if she does not feel like doing something, she simply will not do it (mind you she does clean up when I ask her and for me it is good enough).

Ok it is maybe a very good trait of character THAT SHE KNOWS WHAT SHE WANTS and that's what I will believe for now.


School will come soon enough in her life. She will start pre-K next year, behind a few months short of her 5 birthday.