Eating Pizza and Drinking Pop in Little America

LM is in the bathtub right now. She loves the water and would probably spend the whole night in there if we would let her. I remember loving the bathtub at her age...

 

We had pizza again tonight. As I watched her eat it, I wondered if she thinks that the only thing we eat is pizza and chicken and wash it all down with a Sprite while sitting in front of the TV. Seriously, there is so little to do that it feels like we just sit (when we are in the hotel room£©and some people eat...

 

I feel bad for LM though. She must be torn between two worlds right now. When we go out anywhere, she sees and hears 'her people' all around her. She understands them and their way of life. Then we return to what I have dubbed 'Little America,' our hotel rooms. She was told that these are now her people, so she tries to do as they do, eat what they eat, etc. But the next day we go out and she sees her world again. How could you not be confused? How do you explain to a child all that is involved in such a thing as child abandonment and the 'survival of the fittest' mentality that I have seen here. Quite simply...you don't. You just hang in there as she adjusts to the major changes, even when it is hard.

 

It is not hard right now but I expect that it will be in spurts in the future.

 

LM prefers her pink tennis shoes over her sandals. She told the guide that she thinks that she walks better in them...I guess I am smarter than I look. I have seen her take major nosedives in her sandals. She ends up with new bruises every day. Part of the reason is that she is always running and dancing. What a walking circus! I would like to try to get her into a harder bottomed sandals with a shoe front (something like a Keen) but I don't want to take away her special shoes so I have decided to let it go for now. It is difficult to watch her walk in those sandals though because I have seen her go down so much.

 

Today she was dancing to a song on her cartoon and trip over the chair. She bent her left leg at the knee. It really hurt her and I felt bad. She was a huge trooper though. I thought that she was going to cry, I was going to cry for her but she put on a brave face, rubbed it for a while and went on with life.

 

Her pain tolerance is very good. We had Cindy ask her whether she could walk before her surgery and (I think I told you already) she didn't. In the conversation, she said that when she had her surgery, the pain was so bad that she wiggled and got into trouble. Cindy told her that if she needed another surgery in America that she wasn't to wiggle. It was really sad. I would guess that is where the high pain tolerance comes from. I definitely cannot guarantee that she won't need another surgery but I am not going to tell her just yet.

Angie