Daddy's Love

Carol has been ignoring Ana, and Ana has been really upset about it.

Carol thinks we are ignoring her and giving you much attention to Ana. She doesn't play with her anymore and keeps to herself, watching TV or just running around. Ana obviously is sad about the fact and I heard her asking Jay, if she has done anything that hurt Carol and that she if she told her what's wrong, she could apologize and make it right. It breaks my heart. Ana is getting more attention because Carol is avoiding her. So, it's kind of a vicious cycle all four of us, have somehow gotten ourselves into. Ana, being younger than Carol in her headspace doesn't help one bit either.

Carol is At least not fighting with Ana or making life difficult for her. She can, very well. She loves Ana, only she doesn't know how to deal with the divided attention yet. She, flairs well even be herself. She is always occupied doing one thing or another. Going over play dates without Ana or painting alone.

Ana, on the other hand is going cranky by the day. She wants to be left alone and just stare at the ceiling which is not supposed to be a good sign. She eats her food and does everything she is required to do, but more like because she has to. If we skip her dinner She won't ask for it. She just wants to weep sometimes but will hold back. She misses Carol. I don't know what to do to make things right. Jay is equally clueless.

"Let's go to the park, shall we?" I ask the girls, while the four of us are sitting in the living room in uncomfortable silence.

"Yay! Yaasss!" Carol gets excited and jumps on my arms. Ana looks indifferent. Jay looks at all of us like he is watching a movie or something.

I raise an eyebrow at him.

"Let's go." he says and we pack lunch and some toys for the girls and leave.

As soon as we reach the park Carol runs off to her friends.

Ana, by contrast sits with us. She is shy.

"Baby why don't you go and play?" I ask her gently.

She takes a sweeping look of the park, wondering where to go.

"Would you like to play in the sand?" Jay asks her next. She likes playing in the sand. She makes beautiful little sand castles.

Jay picks her up and leaves her in the sand pit and comes back to where we were sitting. Ana is, thankfully, soon engrossed in making her sand castles.

"Should I tell Carol to talk to Ana? I know she won't tell me no." I ask Jay.

"No, let her take her time, talk to her when she wants to."

"Are we really giving you much attention to Ana?"

"No Chris. It's just that, Carol, she will have to come to terms with the fact that she gets herself into trouble way more than Ana does and therefore gets punished. It has got nothing to do with Ana. She is relatively very docile, and you know that."

I nod. This has been our topic of conversation for the past week.

We look up to see a kid knock Ana's sandcastle off. She looks like she is about to cry. I am about to get up and go to the bullying kid when Jay holds my hand.

Two seconds later we see Carol storm past us to the sand pit. She turns around the kid and punches hum right on the face.