One Quick Thing

We have been out of school all week so far, but I think even if she weren't sick, she wouldn't want to go. She has been very strange when I ask her if she will be ready to go to school. I asked her if there was anything going on that I should know about, then asked leading questions to try to figure it out. Today, since she is better, I told her that I thought she would go to school tomorrow. She said she didn't want to go. I told her she had to go, and that school was almost over for the year. She was sitting at the table getting ready to eat something and I looked at her precious little face and saw one big pout on it. This is the child who doesn't cry sad tears. Or should I say, didn't used to cry sad tears. Somehow I got it out of her that she didn't want to go to school because she didn't want to be away from me! Did I hear that right? She was upset because she wanted to be with me! Oh, we have come so far... I watched her face trying to keep in the tears, her eyes were all welled up with tears just waiting to spill out. I wiped her eyes as we talked and told her it was okay to cry. She let loose, crawled into my arms and cried. It was while I was comforting her that I discovered that she didn't know how to cry. Not that she couldn't cry, but it just didn't sound like sadness. She would kind of force it out, bystanders(and judgemental people) would think she was faking. She would let out those little forceful half yell/half cries now and then, with the rest sounding like fake crying. I was devastated to think she had held it in for so long that she lost the ability to freely cry. I just let her go for as long as she needed to, which was probably about 5-10 minutes. Again, after it was over, she was much better. She asked if she could stay a short day and I said she could. She eventually said she wanted to stay a full day. I told her we would decide in the morning. I am proud of her that she seems to be allowing herself to feel and express sadness. I was also thinking how hard this is for me to know her little heart is allowing itself to be vulnerable again. Although I thought life was so hard before, not knowing how this would all unfold, if she would ever be able to do the things she is doing today. Now that all that is in place, I find myself wishing she was so tough like before. I don't really mean that, she was in a terrible place before, I just didn't know how she was suffering. There was so much else that she was working on at the same time. We helped her in every area, just some came together before others. She really misses her sisters at college and she just recently misses her daddy when he goes to work. I love that she is showing that she misses them, and at the same time it is hard to know she misses them. I know this is a big step in her attachment, and thrilled that along with everything else that's going well, that we have this too.