The Poor Child Update

In yesterday's post I eluded to the fact that Elisa has struggled with the move. I think most of the difficulties were because of the lack of constant attention she wasn't receiving. One of us is with her most of the time (if not all), but that is practically impossible while preparing for and executing an international move. Before giving some details on Elisa's struggles I will say that she is doing so much better now that we are back to a somewhat normal schedule.

Children are pretty perceptive. When things start to disappear or get carried out the door (garage sale) or get boxed up they sense something is up. Elisa got this load and clear. Our whole family felt the weight and stress of this move - including little Elisa.

Although the people that we had watch her while we were working on things are some of her best friends the situation kind of freaked her out. We followed some advice and did the best we could to explain that we were "going to live in another house soon" and that she would see "Grandmommie and Granddaddy soon". It was good that we had her say "good-bye" to the different rooms of the house, to the moving truck and to the house. We will also take her to say "good-bye" to the mall, to the parks she knows and to other frequented spots. It should help her cope. I don't think she really got it though, until she went into the house when it was completely empty. Then it was like a light bulb going off - we don't live here anymore.

To add to the stress she has been hitting a real accident prone stage. Five times in just a couple of days she smashed her head really good. Once she rolled out of the new bed she is sleeping in at Matt and Waleska's house (we learned how to keep that from happening the hard way - sorry, Elisa), twice she walked straight into the sliding glass doors at the old house while they were closed, once she feel face first into the sidewalk while trying to run down a slight slope (really, really bad) and once she feel backward off of a chair at a store - slamming the back of her head against the tile. The poor thing was really beat up. I think that the new surroundings made it hard for her to sleep well which caused her to be tired whick in turn caused her to not be as coordinated.

There have been some fun things though. As noted above, Elisa is sleeping in a different bed now. She is in a queen bed! We had to line both sides of the bed with chairs so that she would roll off onto the floor. She has discovered, though, that she can get out on her own when she wants. This hasn't been to troublesome, but we have caught her sneaking around the apartment when she is supposed to be taking a nap. I thought I heard her quietly walking down the hall the other day. I found her in a back room, squating on the floor, messing with something unimportant. I just watched. After a couple of minutes of playing she looked up and saw me. She smiled great big and said, "Hi! I woked up!" We get that a lot these days. She gets herself up in the morning now, comes to our room and announces "I woked up!"

She is enjoying the Christmas season and is looking forward to Santa coming tomorrow night. We thanked God for Santa in our prayers this evening. After we said "Amen!" Elisa said, "I love Santa Clause." She really does. I'm sure that he is going to reward her well for all that she has suffered through the past few weeks; the poor child.