Jenna Townsend
Jenna stood in the doorway watching the unaware children play. She’d caught a snippet of conversation as she passed the room on her way to her adjoining office. Leaning against the doorjam she listened. “My daddy is a prince.” “Well mine is a king, and he’s 8 feet tall.” “Mine is 9 feet tall” “Mine is president of a company and he’s in charge.” “Mine *owns* the company.” The girls dissolved into giggles. Jenna smiled. The girls weren’t being nasty or trying to one up each other neither knew their father. They often pretended to know their dad’s and what they were like. Sometimes they were spot on.. other times they were just being silly. Jenna knew at some point she and Em would have to talk to the girls about their fathers. She also knew it would be difficult to talk to Alessandra about her dad. There hadn’t been any real discussion about Dads and why she didn’t have one. It wasn’t like she was the only kid in class that didn’t have a father.
The dad talk continued as they moved over to play with the doll house. They adopted deep voices for the daddies and high squeeky voices for kids and normal voices for mommies. They took turns playing each part. Elizabeth had daddy tucking in the baby using a deep voice, “Daddy loves his little princess. He will stay with her and keep her safe forever.” She made the male doll sit in the rocking chair and watch. When it was Alessandra’s turn she had the male doll sit in the chair where Elizabeth had left himand she put the doll that resembled her in the lap of the “daddy” doll, wrapping each doll’s around the other and pretended to have the Daddy doll sing to the little girl, Alessandra, sang in a deep voice:
Sleep, baby, sleep,
Your daddy’s away,
Sleep, baby, sleep,
And mommy will pray,
Pray for your daddy
Who sails on the sea,
Pray while I’m rocking
His babe on my knee;
May breezes blow gently
Where’er he may be,
And blow him home safely
To you and to me;
Safely, safely,
To you and to me,
To you and to me.
Jenna smiled recognizing the song she often sang to Alessandra. She smiled realizing that these girls were well adjusted and probably best friends. Jenna pushed off the wall and went to her office and settled in to some paperwork she’d been putting off.
Related posts:
