7 June 2003 - Katherine’s last day of school, complete with food, birthday party and talent show was on June 5th. My little “star” decided she was going to sing “This Little Light of Mine” as a surprise.
And guess who drove down there? I think I did pretty well, for driving down fairly empty roads. We stopped at PriceSmart on the way home to pick up supplies for summer camp next week and wouldn’t you know someone asked if we needed a driver. Erg.
Katherine hasn’t been feeling well the past week, complaining of stomach pains that have brought her to tears many times, and yesterday spent the entire day curled up in bed and on the couch even though a friend was over to play. At least the friend kept Rebecca and Nicholas busy all day, allowing Katherine to rest a good bit. She was sipping tea and eating toast, but by the evening was hungry and ate a good bit, only to burst into tears a short while later in terrible pain. Ian gave her a dose of Maalox thinking she was suffering from a gas bubble and today she did seem much better (even with the dark bags under her eyes) but still complained some. She had enough energy to ride her bike at the playground and climb on the monkey bars, so I have to think the worst is over.
The other day was eye-opening. After dinner on Thursday it ended up being her and me sitting at the table while the others got ready for bed. While sitting quietly, she began to speak and out poured so many worries and thoughts (some rather disturbing) from her mind that I had to remind myself just to listen and watch her closely. She said she has lots of bad dreams. She talked a long while about a battle going on in her mind between a holy spirit and an evil spirit. She spoke of her desires to be good but how she often feels that evil spirits are near her, telling her to do bad things. She said how she doesn’t like cleaning up the dishes herself because she feels there is a ghost with her in the kitchen. She asked questions about going to heaven, about good people, about making mistakes and forgiveness. We talked about how God forgives us no matter how many times we mess up, as long as we’re really sorry about it, and the same thing goes for parents with our kids. I reminded her about all the mistakes I make, and we discussed how making mistakes or hurting people doesn’t make us bad. It means we have choices, it gives us chances to learn. It makes us human.
She continued by saying that she knows that some things are wrong to do and doesn’t know why she does them, and she hates being sent to her room, but while she’s in there she yells at herself and wants to hit her head into the wall, and how she feels she has to punish herself. She believes that she doesn’t deserve good things when she has done something wrong, if I’d given her something before then she should crumple it or tear it up. I did interject here, reminding her that being sent to her room is for her to calm down and regain control and hurting herself is not an option. I will keep a much closer eye on her next time she is disciplined, and remind her again that being in her room is punishment enough and I encouraged her to write out her feelings as she did last time. Last time, she wrote a wonderful few words of apology for her behavior because she didn’t feel that she could speak them to me. I told her that was fine, that the importance lay in her taking responsibility for her mistake. And of course I apologized too. I realized I need to hug her more. She’s so big and so strong and so smart and introspective. She is amazingly emotionally sensitive.
She’s 7.
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