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~



Friday, May 13, 2011

Definitely a Girl











I am nearing the end of Jacie's Journey blog with her one year anniversary coming up in June. It is so bittersweet to think of not continuing, that I have decided to go on but in a different vein. I am going to begin a new blog this weekend entitled, The Summer in the Garden. For a little over a month, I will write on both blogs. Then I will pull this blog and begin to format it into book form. The Summer in the Garden will continue Jacie's journey but encompass our second year. It will include thoughts about adoption, relationships and growth. I am very excited about it. It will also deal with the transition to the teen years that the oldest two are walking. Though I am not a 'gardener' by nature, I am going to work with the children at least three days a week at home on the farm. Much of that time will be spent in the garden. I call it my summer to connect with my kids. It seems that I have been so busy for almost five years. I do not want to miss out on this time. We are home- all summer. The boys are not working and I am only blogging part-time. Look for that addition in the near future.

Jacie does not like the heat and complains when she has to do anything in it. She also has a bug fetish- I am sure you remember that from previous posts. I have decided that one of my goals this summer is to encourage her to step out of her boundaries, get hot, learn what it feels like to work hard then play hard and tolerate the many critters that roam the earth with her. So yesterday Jacie and I began our gardening adventure. It was definitely hot. For awhile, she sat and watched me while holding a bag of ice and a wet washcloth to her face. "Oh, it's hot, " she moan periodically from behind the cloth covering her face.

"No kidding," I thought as the sweat dripped off my nose.

I didn't say much. I just continued working and talking to her. She is beginning to enjoy just sitting an visiting. We talked about plants. We talked about her leg. We talked about the upcoming trip. We talked. And talked. And talked. Eventually she was standing beside me questioning everything. "Why you do that, Ma?"




"So the plants will grow."

"Can I do that?"




"Sure."

This was, of course, my unspoken goal. For the next two hours, she and I planted her fairy garden, the tomatoes, peppers, peas and onions. Her favorite was the fairy garden. It is a glass sphere which is open on one end. In it we placed flowers, a mirror (the pond) and pretty glass stones. Her brother told her that if she set it outside, she would catch a fairy so she has been watching for one since.

After her fairy garden and the tomatoes, she sat down to get out of the sun and enjoyed being the king. She would tell me (the servant) what to plant and where. Though I didn't always follow her directives, she enjoyed the game. She is definitely a girl. Every time she would plant something she would talk to it. "There now, you grow big. You no die.."

"I will check on you tomorrow."

"I love you little tomato."

It was too sweet. She even let me put her hair in a pony tail again! She also added some barrettes to keep her bangs back. I added a picture of that at the top.

When we were finished gardening and driving over to pick up her brothers, she reached over and took my hand saying, "I love you, mom."

That was music to my ears. She has pestered me all day about getting out to the garden today but we had other plans. Perhaps tomorrow?

She did ask me to sit and talk this afternoon. We drank lemonade and I listened to her talk about China. She told me again that China Ma cried when she left. I said, "I'll bet you miss her."
She replied, "Yes but now I love you."

I said, "It is okay to love us both."

She smiled and said, "Okay."

As we look to more gardening in the future, I wonder how she will like weeding all of those precious tomatoes that she planted.

Perhaps she will just have the servant do it...

I am blessed.

~Camo Pants

No comments:

Post a Comment