Spicy Dragons & Dinosaurs

Sitting downstairs from the therapy room that Julia is in. Her first clinic day. Julia will have two two-hour sessions a week during which she has her own therapist but that she will be exposed to other kids around her age to socialize with. The only other kid here today is a very anxious boy. I have no idea how Julia will do with him if he wants to socialize.

I am just waiting today, but I will be able to leave the clinic during these times. Then again, the waiting space couch is really comfortable.

Again it is raining so we are inside today. Julia has 7 hours of therapy today. I am not going to try to teach her anything. We talked about how some days are just too busy to do dinosaur work. She asked me if she can still draw dinosaurs -- like she would refrain from drawing if I said no. LOL.

While we were watching a National Geographic show last night called Dinosaur Hunters. It was about a pair of guys on a dig in the Gobi desert. This was so cool because we were talking about Mongolia as it is where T-rex bones are found. Ovaraptor bones have been found there as well. The paleontologists found multiple ovaraptor skeletons and a nest with at least a dozen eggs in it.

Julia set to work and drew an overaptor couple with a nest. The eggs in the next are beginning to crack open and she drew little babies inside. She has not colored the picture yet and I am pushing her to because of the colors that she has been using. I want to see this family in color!

Morgan, one of our therapists, told me yesterday that Julia was insisting on being Julia T-rex or Julia dinosaur with her. Julia told Morgan that she (Julia) is not a girl, is ugly as a girl, and has a bad face. I told Morgan what we say. This is so incredibly sad to hear from Julia, no matter how many times I hear it. Could she be any prettier? How did anyone ever convince her that she was not perfectly lovely and wonderful? It is times like this when I really hate the people who hurt her so. It continues to be very hard for me to forgive people who hurt children.

As we drove to clinic today, Julia talked about playing with her clinic therapist who came to our house last week to meet Julia. When I told her that there would be other kids there, Julia decided not to play with the other kids today. I wonder if she will hold to that. When I asked her if she was shy or nervous about meeting other kids, she told me no. When I asked is she was scared, she said no. But she was. When we were out of the car and standing in front of the desk at IDS, I told Cortney that Julia was a little nervous, and Julia yanked at my hand and told me that she was okay and happy. “Look at my smiling face.” And I wondered if I should have revealed this “secret” of being scared or let her fake a brave happy face. If it was another child, I would not have mentioned it. I would have assumed that it was probably good for her to learn to put on a mask to make it through new situations. But is that good for Julia?