Jacie has been home for 2 1/2 years. She was adopted from the Special Needs Chinese Adoption Program at the age of 8 years old. She is learning and growing in her forever family~



Sunday, December 26, 2010

A Hollow Leg

Little Miss (it seems a long time since I have called her that...) has a lot going on in her life right now. She is still learning about her boundaries, the boundaries that I set and how they both work together to create a well rounded life for her. What a difficult lesson to learn. Without the base of reasoning that is usually found in an eight year old, she is what I call 'climbing blind'. As her life experiences build, so will her understanding of why we do and do not do particular things like not buying everything in the store...every time that we go in.


 

Yesterday, she was talking to me about how Loren has two handheld game systems and Jared and Jacie have none. She says, "Ma like Loren. He has two" then shows handheld games. She then goes on to say, "Ma no like Jared and Jacie. She no give them any."


 

It makes me think of the firstborn in the Bible. That firstborn was always the blessed one. They always got the best of everything and the most. Of course, the part that Jacie does not understand is that Loren bought his own handheld games. All of his 'video game stuff' he earned. She also doesn't understand that Jared has had two of the game systems, losing the first and breaking the latter...


 

This conversation about these games escalated until she was crying. She began to talk about China. She said, "In Chinese (which means 'in China') Jacie no have any toys to play with. Jacie sit all day and watch DVD."


 

I said, "Oh, you did not play with toys or kids?"


 

"No. Jacie never get yelled at because I sit all day and watch."


 

Me: "Did you sit by yourself?"


 

"My friend sit with me sometimes."


 

"Your friend? Where is your friend?"


 

"My friend go bye-bye (this particular friend, I believe, reached the age of adoption limit and was moved out of her orphanage.)"


 

It is incredibly easy to see that Jacie is intelligent. She does not have a problem figuring out things like she didn't get into trouble because she didn't do anything...


 

I think that she was trying to tell Loren, Jared and I that she wanted to play Loren's games, touch everything in sight and be everywhere because she didn't get to for so long. We definitely got the message. There is another thing that she does not know...Loren, Jared and I found a used handheld game system w/ games that she would enjoy, have purchased it, checked it out and it is now awaiting Christmas morning...


 

I don't think she really understands what Christmas means and probably thinks I am crazy when she keeps hearing me say, "Let's see what you get for Christmas."


 

Another discovery about Jacie came when I was trying to fit her for gloves. She has a bent finger on her left hand and the doctor didn't think it was necessary at this point to fix it. When we were trying on gloves she could not get her hand into any of the ski gloves or a thicker glove of any type. We settled for a knit type, at least to get her by. I do not know if she has more paralysis in her hand than I originally thought or it is just that finger that makes it difficult...? I will have to ask the doctor to take a look at it when we go next month.


 

She amazed her grandma yesterday by packing away five whole pieces of pizza for dinner. I guess my theory about her having a hollow leg might actually be true.


 

We are encouraged by her humor and ability to cope in many situations...she is such a neat person.


 

~Angie

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