All Dirt With a Little Bit of Sparkle

This time of year is a very happy...

 

I love it. Jacie is struggling though. I am not sure if it all of the excitement of the season, being worn-out or something completely different but she is very sassy.

 

All of the time.

 

If I tell her not to do something, she looks me straight in the face and proceeds to do exactly that.

 

She argues a lot. About everything. It borders on being funny because most of the time that she is arguing...she has no idea what we were talking about. We don't laugh at her when this happens...we laugh with her.

 

This is an interesting place to be.

 

This morning she cried and got VERY upset when she found out that Loren had eaten the left over pizza. She easily fixates on things and will not let them go. She kept questioning, "Loren, eat the pizza?"

 

Bart would answer, "Yes."

 

"Loren eat all the pizza?"

 

"Yes."

 

Then she started to cry and got very angry and said, "Loren eat the pizza. Loren bad."

 

I said, "Why is Loren bad?"

 

"He ate all my pizza."

 

"It wasn't your pizza..."

 

This type of exchange can go on for an hour if I let it. I usually don't though. Today, it got so bad I had to send her to her room. I have never done that before.

 

At church she picked up the same manipulation game. Loren had a pen that he had brought to church. Jacie wanted one...

 

You get the idea. This happens often. Her problem is that she fixates on what she wants and cannot see past it. I took her out of church this morning and tried to reason with her about the pen. All I got out of the conversation was that she did not understand why Jesus was not in the church and did not understand why we had to wait for Christmas.

 

"So Jesus, she not here (church)?"

 

"No."

 

"Where, she?"

 

"Heaven."

 

"She's ahh died?"

 

"Yes."

 

"Jesus' friend God save her. Why she no here?"

 

"God took him to heaven. He is waiting for you and me."

 

"Waiting for hungry. You bring food to Jesus?"

 

The deeper this conversation went, the deeper into the hole I dove until I finally said, "Let's go back into church."

 

Maybe that seems like too big of a conversation to walk out of but please understand that her language base is nowhere near developed so there is no way to explain anything spiritual or deep. Any effort to try has left me grasping to put it in words and experiences she can tie back to. It is a very difficult situation. One that I pray about daily.

 

She is very temperamental and argumentative daily. I think that the 'honeymoon period' has worn off and she is realizing that everything is not about her. What a hard place to be in. For almost two years, my life completely revolved around her. First in the adoption process, then the next six months. Now things are starting to level off and get back to a new kind of normal...

 

I hope that she will find her place and gain comfortability in the family. There is nothing that I can do to hasten the process. It is just a major adjustment. I have every confidence that she will fit in nicely.

 

She is overall doing well. She has grown 1 3/4 inches since she came home. Her hair has grown out quite a bit, so people don't call her a boy as often.

 

She still does prefer to play with the boys at family functions. I think that it is good for her and will help her to grow. Unfortunately, for grandma, she is not a tea party kind of girl...

 

'All dirt with a little bit of sparkle' is what I call her. She's a pretty cool kid. I like that too...

 

~Angie