Week 12

Last week we finished our 12th week with Catherine. Again in some ways it is getting easier and in other ways not so much.

She is still very antagonistic towards our faith. She wants absolutely nothing to do with any of it.  It’s a sad situation.

You can more and more see Catherine’s huge disdain for any type of authority figure in her life. She told me one day she has no use for adults. She thinks she is 11 years old now and should be able to go to bed when she wants, get up when she wants, eat when and what she wants.

She leaves for China in approximately 33 days. I would think, as would everyone who has asked me, she would be very anxious and ready to go home. To see her family and friends, her pet mice, just to have her own things around her. But she isn’t. She doesn’t want to go home. I’m not sure what she wants to do exactly because it’s somewhat apparent she doesn’t want to be here either.  She maintains the only thing in China she misses at all is her comic books.  She said she will run and hug her aunt when she gets home because she has bought all Catherine’s comic books for her there.

Twice a month Catherine’s skype’s her mom in China. I’ve said she can use my computer for that but she doesn’t want to. Emphatically doesn’t want to. And I can’t get the skype address for her mom to work at home.  She never mentions friends at all in China. I’m sure she has some but never talks about them or says she misses them.

This past weekend Catherine got to experience, for the first time, Easter. We don’t celebrate Easter with eggs and bunnies. We do have  a “Spring Party” on the Saturday before Easter. For our Spring Party this year all three girls went to a gardening class at a local nursery. They were able to plant vegetables and/or flowers.  We colored eggs on Friday night and Saturday late morning the girls got to hunt for them.

On Easter night we took all the girls swimming at the hotel where my in-laws were staying. When Catherine was told they were going swimming she hugged me and said, “I LOVE YOU!”

That was a first. I do wish it wasn’t because I had done something she liked. Not that I don’t do things she likes every day but she was excited.  We have noticed she hugs others readily while when Mr. FullCup and I hug her she acts like a board.

I am optimistic though that she will miss us greatly when she’s gone. I’m sure we will miss her too.