It’s almost a week since “Kylie” left us to go to her (hopefully) forever home so I thought I’d reminisce a bit about the little lady with the crazy, infectious laugh….I do miss that laugh of hers.
We’ve had a couple of text messages earlier in the week, a general hello, and a ‘what is the special toothpaste she uses?’ Made me giggle. Missy is starting with her mystery illnesses telling M she has sensitive teeth. Sure she does…not, she eats ice cream and frozen drinks and even chews on ice cubes. Early in her stay with us “Kylie” claimed to have about 5 different medical issues that she didn’t have.
“Kylie” did have a tendency to expand on the truth, A LOT.
Pa took “Kylie” for an adventure walk on the farm, looking for gold. They came back and when”Kylie” was telling us about her adventure she mentioned that there was a treasure box in the cave. Really? We were up there not long ago and there was no treasure chest. “Kylie” was given a few chances to change her story and remove the non-existent treasure chest but she stayed firm with this story until we said we would call Pa and ask him. We had a chat about telling tales and talked about the story “The boy who cried wolf” and explained that her adventure with Pa was exciting and awesome without adding the treasure chest.
Our other tall tale was worse. Somehow “Kylie and Kelly” got to talking about spiders in the car on the way home from the farm and the girls got to trying to out-do each other. “Kelly” mentioned she had been bitten by a spider once and her leg went purple (not the first time she’s mentioned this so it must be true as she can’t like to save herself as her long term memory isn’t that good) so, “Kylie” not to be outdone told us about her sister and that she’d been bitten by a red-back spider and died. Really? That’s unusual, No one has died in Australia for about 60 years from a red back spider bite. “Kylie” was given multiple opportunities to say that she made up the story but she stuck with it and it got more and more elaborate. We had to check it with the department. All of “Kylie’s” sisters are alive and well. The social worker even giggled about her vivid imagination. The problem, “Kelly’s” mother and sister are both deceased so we didn’t think it so funny. When “Kelly” wasn’t around I had a quiet chat with “Kylie” about her story telling. Normally we wouldn’t share “Kelly’s” info with another child, but I thought it was important for “Kylie” to know that she’s just made up something not very nice and a) how would her sister feel about her making up a story where she featured but died in it and b) how does she think “Kelly” feels thinking that they both have lost a sister. How does she think “Kelly” will feel knowing that she made it up.
As a ‘consequence’ we talked to “Kylie” about her amazing imagination and how that is a good thing to have but there’s good and bad ways to use that creativity. To give her an outlet for her creativeness we gave her a blank book and asked her to write a story where she could make up anything she liked. I sat down with her, she dictated her story to me and I typed it out for her so she would have the correct spelling and page breaks. She then wrote out the whole story, complete with title page and illustrations. She was so proud of her story. She took it to show Pa and explained to him the true parts and the made up parts and in true Pa style he oohed and aaahed and praised her for her work.
I don’t know if “Kylie” ever said sorry to “Kelly” but hopefully we’ve pointed her in the right direction. Who knows, maybe one day we’ll see a book in the stores with a dedication to us.
Foster Care Tales 