Sissy

Sissy is a sweet little Chinese girl in Sarah’s class. Her full name is Catherine Gao. Sissy is her nickname. She has beautiful eyes and very sweet smile. Whenever I see her, I’d try to make her smile or laugh. I enjoy to look at her round eyes becomes half moons, and little mouth opens up to show her tiny teeth.

I spoke to Sissy’s mother almost every time when we picked up the kids at the same time. Sissy’s mother is working in a lab at NIST, which is an agency under Department of Commerce. The family was from Shanghai. Sissy was born and grew up in the States. Since both of her parents are very busy on building up a new life in this country, Sissy may end up be the only child that they will have.

Yesterday as usual, the three girls, Sissy, Grace – another Chinese girl in the class, and Sarah played after school, while three mothers chatted and my husband relaxed on a bench. All of sudden, the three girls stopped running up and down. My husband went to check what went on. After a short pause, we heard Sissy cried hard. Our three mothers ran to comfort Sissy. The first thought came up to my mind was that Sarah pushed Sissy, which was proved to be wrong again. Of course later on, I was educated again by hubby.

On our way home, Sarah and Daddy told me what exactly happened to make Sissy cried.

The three girls found a caterpillar on the ground while didn’t realize it was dead at that time. Sarah and Grace are not afraid of any reptiles, while Sissy is. Somehow, Sissy picked up the dead caterpillar. After a second of holding the bug in her hands, she burst into tears and started cried hard.

For some reasons, I think the other two girls somehow talked into Sissy to pick up the bug, while Sissy tried to prove she could be as brave as her little friends. Peer pressure makes people do stupid things. Poor Sissy learned the lesson in a hard way. Or did she learn the lesson?

Someday, my little Sarah will do something silly or even stupid as Sissy did yesterday. What will she learn then? What will go thru her little mind then? Is there anything I can do to help? I wish, how much I wish, my babies were born with a manual, "Bring up me well and easy”。 ；）