“Hey, what do you have there?” Aunt Dahlia sat down at the table next to Vanessa, who had drawn a picture of some flowers and was in the process of coloring the sky a light purple.
Vanessa’s my daughter, by the way. She’s eight, and she had been sitting quietly on a table out of the way during the family picnic.
I was sitting at a distance, close enough to watch and listen but far enough to give her some space. She was in one of her moods and I had been trying to let her refocus, but my sister had other ideas.
Vanessa turned her shoulder to her aunt and picked up a red crayon, laying its wax on top of the purple.
“Oh, that’s a pretty color, but is that the right color for the sky?” Dahlia picked up a blue crayon and proferred it to Vanessa.
My daughter gave her a sideways look, then gave me a more direct one. Okay, that was my cue to intercede.
I stood up and approached the table. “I think Vanessa wants to be alone right now.”
“I’m just trying to be helpful. Her colors are all messed up. And such a lovely drawing, too.”
Vanessa crumpled up the paper and dropped it to the ground, then stared glumly at the table. I was partly glad that she was redirecting an obvious meltdown into a shutdown, but I’m not sure I would have minded her giving her aunt a piece of her mind.
“Sis, I appreciate the thought, but she really needs to be alone right now.”
Dahlia put the crayon back down. “I don’t know why you pamper her like this. She needs to learn how the world works.”
Oh, she knows perfectly well how the world works. But I kept that thought to myself. “So you’ve told me. And yet, she’s my child, and I’m raising her how I think is best.”
Dahlia looked at Vanessa and started to speak, but I put my hand on hers and gripped just firmly enough to let her know, sister to sister, that this conversation was done for now.
She sighed, gave me another look, and then stood up. “I should really check on the other children.”
After she was gone, I put a fresh piece of paper down in front of Vanessa, but she pushed it aside and continued staring at the table.
“Okay, sweetie. I’m sorry she upset you, and the paper’s there when you want it.”
I went back to the other table, and a few minutes later, my daughter went back to coloring.