Can't change those genes.

I talk a lot about Keilana being so loud and dramatic and bossy, but I must make a confession:  that is Keilana at home, or Grandma's house.  Just about everywhere else, she is extremely quiet and almost sullen.  We have a few friends that we visit fairly regularly, where she plays with just a child or two her own age and in those circumstances she is her normal, exuberant self.  But in the day care at my gym, in her Primary classes, and in any new environment filled with strangers, she becomes a mopey-faced silent child.  My little drama queen is, I'm afraid, terribly shy.

There was a Primary activity (Primary is the Sunday School program for kids ages 3-12 at our Church) on Saturday.  They have activity days every three months or so for the kids, usually lasting an hour or two.  Yesterday they colored an Easter story, decorated egg-shaped sugar cookies and had an Easter egg hunt out on the front lawn of the church.  Sounds like something every 3-year-old would love, right?  The rest of them did.  I was supposed to take Keilana in and just drop her off, but ended up staying for 15 minutes as I tried to coax her to go sit with the other kids, instead of on my lap or clinging to my arm.  I finally left as they all hopped up to table to color (usually one of her favorite activities), sitting next to her older cousin, Elyse.  She was ok with it, but looked miserable and apparently never brightened up much at all until I got back.

This is not an uncommon occurrence.  Any time I leave her with anyone less familiar than grandparents or good friends, she gets melancholy and quiet.  She is very well behaved and doesn't cause any problems, but just hides as much as she can until Doug and I come back.  I get torn between being exasperated at her (Keilana, you know everyone here! You see all of them at least once a week!) and feeling completely awful for her.  You see, she inherited this malady from me.

I know its torture to ask her to stay with someone unfamiliar.  I know being in a roomful of people that she doesn't know intimately probably makes her feel like she's hardly getting enough air.  I'm still convinced that the reason I didn't suffer from constant anxiety attacks as a child is because I had a twin brother to act as a buffer between myself and the world in unfamiliar situations or with unfamiliar people--I always had my other little half there, someone familiar to cling to.  She doesn't.  I can't imagine how difficult it must be for her, with no one.  She sees these people every week, but that doesn't mean she feels like she knows them, feels comfortable with them.  I know that feeling all too well and I just feel terrible for her.

I have consciously fought that very hard in myself since I was 10, but I'm nearly 24 and if I'm at a party, even with people I know but am not very close friends with, and Doug leaves, I can feel my pulse quicken and my breathing get shallow.  The main reason I took the job with MontPIRG when I was 17 was that I knew it would force me to spend four hours a day talking to complete strangers, and another two hours a day in an office with people I'd never met.  All the schools I applied to were thousands of miles from home, so I knew a year later I'd be leaving everything familiar behind.  I had to force myself to deal with being outside my comfort zone to prepare myself for that.  I have made a lot of friends in the six or seven years since then and had a great time moving from place to place, but it certainly hasn't been comfortable for me.  I have learned to be socially graceful and act comfortable, so as not to make others uncomfortable, but I'm not actually at ease as often as I seem to be.  When I'm the one everyone is looking at (e.i. teaching a lesson) or I'm trying to have a conversation with people I don't know well I go from a rather relaxed, articulate person to someone who stammers a bit, trails off a lot, constantly adjusts my hair or touches my face and laughs for no good reason.  Its been such a difficult thing for me to try to overcome and so its frustrating to see my daughter struggle with the same thing.

She's got a long, long way to go, and I'm starting to get a little worried about sending her to school next year.  I'm sure that ultimately she'll do fine, but I know that the first couple years are going to be enormously difficult for her.  She LOVES other kids, and as long as they are cousins or we are in small groups of 1-3 other kids, she does just fine.  But if the group starts getting bigger than that, she becomes quite withdrawn.  For those of you who have seen my little Tigger in action, you know that's a pretty severe change.

Your kids come so perfect, you hope that they'll escape your pitfalls.  You don't want them to have to struggle with the things you've had to struggle with.  But I guess at least she'll always have a parent who understands.  That's gotta be worth something.