MEET FINLEY
When you have twelve grandchildren, you're bound to have one of these!! Finley is the girl in the backseat of my Jeep pointing out a rainbow, exclaiming, "Gramma, look at the orange rainbow!!! Isn't it pretty?" Or "Gramma, why are those clouds down in the sky like that?" She sees the beauty of falling autumn leaves. I'll forever hold in my heart the image of her standing at our family room sliding door looking out as the wind gently rained down orange, red, and yellow leaves off our maple and elm trees!! She was genuinely mesmerized by the beauty of it all....simple joys of nature, of life!!! And she is three years old!
On the other end of the spectrum, however, I painfully remember the day I am babysitting at my daughter's home. It is time for lunch, and Fin is in one her moods where she doesn't very much like her wild and crazy gramma. She tells her gramma that she doesn't want her lunch. I say, "Finley, Gramma made you chicken nuggets, carrots and milk for lunch, and it is time for you to eat." I pick her up like a football and carry her over to the table as she screams bloody murder, sit her down as she flings her plate (holding all the food!) through the air like a frisbee, pelting the kitchen cupboards and floors with carrots, milk, and nuggets of chicken!!! Then Finley is mad, hurt, and unwilling to repent, feeling Gramma has wounded her psyche for life!
Such is the study of contrasts typical of the CREATIVE enigmatic child. These kids are different from the typical first-born who tend to be perfectionistic, many times bossy, self-righteous leader-types. And these kids from a different planet don't fit into the category of social butterflies either. They are those far-out, weird dressing, sensitive, moody and highly creative children who truly live on a different plane than most of us. The problem is we don't really understand these kids. And I don't think that is fair.
Finley lives in the world of imagination. One day I had her staying at my house and decided to take her to the city park. I was sitting on the play equipment watching as she and another 8 year old girl were playing together. They had not met each other before this rendevous in the park and I listened in on their conversation. The other girl asked, "What is your name?" Finley was hanging by one arm on the railing and came down on her two feet, looked the girl in the eyes and quietly said as stone-faced as could be, "Gracie." My first inclination was to butt in and yell, "Finley, that's not your name....you're not telling this little girl the truth!!" But I held my tongue as I realized that in this scenario, Finley was imagining that she, indeed, was a little girl in a fairy land named Gracie!!!
It has taken some resource reading and trial and error in my interactions with her. But I AM trying to understand her world. We paint together, we play in imaginative worlds together. Today we made a tent and played under the kitchen table all morning. And remind you, we were in a tent in Bethlehem....Finley was NOT Finley...she was Mary, mothering her baby Jesus. Gramma was instructed she was an angel ( a fact my husband refutes!) and Harper was Zacharius. Right before lunch Fin walked up to me and said, "Gramma, I don't want to be Mary anymore. I am now Finley." Ok, dear Fin, you have returned to the real world.
MOTHER MARY, ZACHARIUS & GREEN ANGEL
IN TENT IN BETHLEHEM!
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