Blitzen and song lyrics

Blitzen loves to incorporate a good song lyric into her everyday conversation.  Taylor Swift, in particular, seems to strike the right note with Blitzen.  I guess they have similar philosophies although Blitzen is quite confused by Taylor’s revolving door of boyfriends.  We talk about that a lot.  Almost every new Taylor Swift hit results in a conversation something like this:

Blitzen says, “Taylor has a new boyfriend?!?”

Me or Andrew, “No, I think this is song is just about breaking up with the old boyfriend.”

Blitzen, “Wait, what is she singing about?”

Me or Andrew reply that it is whatever teenage angsty issue Taylor is belting out.

Blitzen reflects, “She sure has a lot of different boyfriends!”

Anyway, this morning as I was leaving for work (a little earlier than usual) and Blitzen thought about getting upset and cranky, she decided to serenade me with the lyrics from Stay Stay Stay instead.

This kid really couldn’t get any cuter.

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Singing

Apparently Blitzen has been singing quite a bit a school.  Cosmically, I think this is good – she is happy and comfortable.  I think we may need to work on the volume a bit though.  Might not be the best thing to be belting out Beyonce in the middle of class.

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Blitzen, song writer

Blitzen has a very poetic soul.  She is really one of the most creative kids that I’ve met.  She loves to write a song.  She made this one up last night and sang it me before bed:

You Can Follow Your Own Heart

You can live on what you see

You can follow your own heart

Don’t let nobody take over you

Just follow your own heart

You can be somewhere else

Or you can follow me around

But I won’t chase you

You can follow your own heart

 

 

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What’s She Singing About?

I love pop music.  Give me two chords and a catchy hook burrowing into my brain and you’ve got me.

It turns out that my musical taste tracks perfectly with that of nine year-old girls.  Much to Carrie’s chagrin, Blitzen and I can play the same songs on repeat for hours.

The first couple times Blitzen hears a new song, she listens carefully and asks,  “What’s she singing about?”  We’ve had thoughtful discussions about the meanings of song lyrics by Miley Cyrus, Beyonce, Sara Bareilles, Rihanna,  Demi Lovato.  Blitzen hears the emotion, confidence and passion of these singers and wants to crack their code.

When Blitzen hears the first few notes of a song she likes, she gets excited.  “This is my song right here!”  She frequently walks around the house singing lyrics that articulate her emotions.  A recent favorite (from a mermaid movie of course) goes “I feel connected, protected… connected inside.”

This month, Blitzen, like most Americans, is singing “Call Me Maybe.”  Unlike most Americans, Blitzen can’t sing it without crying.  She was weeping in the shower trying to get the words out.  As she explained afterward, “H (beloved eight-year-old niece) and I sang this song every day in Arizona.  It was our song.  I miss H so much.”

Golly Blitzen uses words well to express her feelings.  Seaweed makes her anxious, leaving people you love is difficult, Carrie understands her best.   When Blitzen sings and cries in the shower with emotion-filled pop songs yet to be written, she’ll know exactly what she’s singing about.  I’m especially excited about the words she’ll write herself.

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No Ordinary Girl

Blitzen spends her Choice Time watching favorite, comforting mermaid scenes on repeat, inviting them to burrow into a grove in her consciousness.

The mermaid movie d’jour is Aquamarine.  The scene on repeat is (spoiler alert) the climax.  Two human teenagers dive into the ocean to save a mermaid being pulled back to sea by her family.

Mermaid: “You girls aren’t safe in the sea!  The storm is too strong!”

Humans: “Why is your dad pulling you back now?  Can’t you stay here forever?”

Mermaid:  “I’m a mermaid.  I have a family out there who needs me.  As much as I want to stay, I belong in the ocean.”

The song Blitzen is listening to and singing is “No Ordinary Girl.”

“I’ve got a special power
that I’m not afraid to use
Every waking hour
I discover something new

I’m no ordinary girl
I’m from the deep blue underworld
Land or sea, I’ve got the power
If I just believe”

On Saturday and Sunday Blitzen puts on her flippers at the YMCA pool and practices swimming like a mermaid, developing her power, trying to believe.

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When I am a mermaid

I won’t be able to come visit you, Blitzen told me last night.

Can’t we use a boat? I asked.

I won’t really have a water taxi, she said.  In stanza two of the mermaid song, there is mention of a mermaid water taxi.

Well, what if I got a boat, drove out to the middle of the ocean and you could swim up and say hi to me there, I replied.

She considered this possibility for quite a while.  That might work, she finally agreed.

And on to other news — Blitzen is getting a new social worker because her family didn’t have enough, I guess.  So now there are 3 social workers for the 6 kids instead of 2.  2 agencies, 3 social workers and a whole host of other people.  I am sure this will ensure smooth communication, clear planning and a speedy process as we work as a team to do what is best for this family.  Or maybe not.

Andrew and Blitzen are meeting the new worker today.  I have a work event so my introduction will hopefully happen next week.  The agency is a little worried about Blitzen’s reaction to a new person (or more accurately, the removal of the old worker who isn’t really going anywhere, he just isn’t our worker any more, so we’ll see him around at agency functions, etc, but he won’t come visit our house once a month). I am not so worried.  Blitzen is much more invested in her relationship with her behavorial therapist.  Miss K comes every week to visit with Blitzen and they are very good friends.  If Miss K leaves or moves on to other cases, we’re really in trouble.  That would be a loss for our entire family because Miss K is GREAT!!!  She is so awesome, oh my gosh.  In the beginning, when things were, well, frankly kind of awful, she called us every day to check in and give us tips and reassure us.  We wouldn’t be where we are now with Blitzen if she hadn’t been so dedicated to helping us and such a great advocate for Blitzen.

We’ll see how the introduction of a new person into our routine turns out.  As Blitzen told me last night, she doesn’t really like bad surprises.

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More mermaid stuff

Blitzen to everyone she encounters (teachers, kids at school, me and Andrew several times a day, strangers on the street) ‘If you were a creature living under the deep, blue sea, would you be a shark, squid, or a mermaid?’  Hint, the correct answer is mermaid.

Blitzen and our friend / music teacher, P, wrote a mermaid song yesterday.  The first stanza goes like this:

Blitzen the mermaid

has short hair so black

she has jewels and gold

piled high in a sack

she swims through the

seaweed, coral and plants

she wears a sparkly orange

outfit but never pants –

She sang it to us last night.  It was quite lovely.  Apparently they brainstormed lots of good mermaid words before composing this beautiful and catchy tune.  Sounds like a lot of fun.

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More swimsuit stories

Swimsuit mania continues.  Yesterday, for the first time in more than a week, I arrived home to see Blitzen clad in traditional clothing – no swimsuit on under or over her street clothes.

But she is still having a lot of fun with the now plural swimsuits.  On Saturday, at the store she saw a red polka dotted suit and just had to have it.  Wanted it so badly that she was willing to split the cost with me.  The suit was at bargain basement prices so it ended up costing each of us just $5.  Money well spent (I would much rather she spend her allowance on swimsuits than doritos).

So Blitzen has been sleeping with a suit under her pjs.  She has been putting on a swimsuit under her clothes after school.  Or just wearing a suit around the house.  And she continues to shower in one of the suits about every other night. and now she can have a couple of swimsuits for swimsuit-showering while I am out of town next week.

This weekend, Blitzen decided that we needed to have a swimsuit fashion show.  She wanted Andrew and I to model our swimsuits as well.  She created a runway from the bedrooms to the living room using all of our yoga mats. Andrew was a dj and model and judge all rolled into one.  Blitzen and I would stand in the bedroom with have our robes over our suits, emerging when the music began, walking our model walks all the way to the trampoline (which sits in our living room instead of a coffee table so that Blitzen can jump when she feels angry to release energy).  It was really funny and a testament to how persuasive and charming Blitzen can be.  I really wouldn’t do a bathing suit fashion show for any other human being on the entire planet – seriously!

Bathing suit fashion show was so much fun, in fact, that she begged me to do it for our dear friends E and V.  E and V came over for some play and pizza dinner on Saturday.  I explained to Blitzen that I didn’t really feel so comfortable playing bathing suit fashion show when we were entertaining guests.  Blitzen asked ‘Why?’  and I said ‘Well, I feel a little a shy.  I don’t really want E and V to see me in my suit when they are not in their suits.’  Blitzen then said ‘Oh, it’s ok.  I’ll hold your hand so you won’t be scared.’  It was really hard to say to no, but I did.  The entire exchange was so sweet that E and V offered to strip down to their skivvies so that we would all be inappropriately attired together — I think they were only half kidding!  In the end, everyone kept their clothes on and we read some books instead.

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100 guppies

It has been a rough week at school for Blitzen.  She missed ‘rally’ for the first time since she started there in November.  Rally, from what I can tell, is a big, free-for-all, reward-for-good-behavior type thing on Thursday afternoons in the auditorium.  There are snacks, music and dancing, sometimes a video and just crazy, wild fun.  Blitzen LOVES rally.  But everyday this week, Blitzen has stormed out of the classroom at least once each day and yesterday, she ran out 3 times.  At home, it is fight.  At school, it is flight.  So no rally.

At dinner, we had a lot of things to discuss.  What is happening at school and an incident with the babysitter that afternoon.  Blitzen doesn’t really like to dive deeply into her feelings and behaviors and will do just about anything to avoid it.  But when we have these conversations at dinner, she just tries to change the subject.  Last night, the conversation went a little bit like this:

Andrew  — How was school today?  I haven’t looked at your point sheet yet.  (School employs a point system and Blitzen loves to get all 72 points – sometimes she does but this week, not so much).

Blitzen — Not good.  I got a 60.

Carrie — I saw your sheet and noticed that you left class again.  That has been happening a lot.  What’s going on?

Blitzen — The kids, you know, the boys, they just be getting on my nerves and my teacher.  But wait, wait, can I ask you something?

Carrie — Yes, you can but this conversation about school isn’t finished.

Blitzen — I know but it is about guppies.

Andrew — We can talk about guppies for a minute but we’re coming back to what happened at school today.

Blitzen – The guppy in my science class is pregnant.  And when her babies are born, she won’t know they are her babies and she will try to eat them.  We saw it on a video.

Carrie — Wow.  Are you going to separate the baby guppies from their mom?

Blitzen — Yes, you know what you have to do? You have to put the babies in another tank.

Andrew — Are you ready to talk about what happened at school now?

Blitzen – No, no, wait, I just gotta tell you something.  One time, at my other foster house, I had 100 guppies and the mom guppy tried to eat all the babies and the baby guppies were really mad at the mom so I had to separate them.  The baby guppies had to live in other tanks – I had like 100 tanks too.

Carrie — That is a lot of tanks.  Now let’s talk about why you ran out of class today.

And on from there.

Now I am willing to wager a significant amount of money that Blitzen never had guppies before.  But mostly I think it is fascinating how, even when she is avoiding talking about difficult things, she ends up revealing so much.  What an interesting tale – you separated the baby guppies from the mom guppy because the babies were mad and they all ended up in separate tanks.  Hmmmm, this story sounds very familiar and it has nothing to do with guppies.

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A Few Amazing Things About Blitzen

This post is overly personal, but I can’t resist celebrating Blitzen.  Here are a few of the things that dazzle me about her:

1)  She sings.  All the time.  On the subway, walking down the street, in bed.  She perches on our windowsill, opens the window and sings to strangers outside.  They always smile.

2)  She is incredibly empathetic. She senses the feelings of other kids on the playground.  She knows by facial expression and tone what characters in books  are thinking based on illustrations and textual evidence, and loves to share that info.   (Piglet is feeling embarrassed, Eeyore is disappointed, etc.)  She knows when characters on tv are lying or conniving.  It’s eerie.

3)  Everything she sees, hears or does is the most breathlessly exciting thing she’s ever seen, heard or done.

Blitzen in a park:  “A duck!  My goodness! (She talks like the 50′s too.) Look at it! That’s a boy duck because it’s green!  A leaf!  Look at it! Wow! That’s the prettiest leaf I’ve ever seen!  A dog! How cute! It’s a girl dog; you can tell by its haircut! Can I have a dog?! A swing! I love to swing! Let’s go swinging! I love you! Look! A stick! Can I keep it?!”  She can do that all day, give or take a good cry every hour or two.

4)  She knows precisely where everything is.  I regularly ask her where I left my phone, my keys, my glasses.  Her visual memory is off the hook.

5)  She wrote a beautiful story today about a dolphin, a trainer, a boy and a mom.

6)  She carries her open umbrella around on sunny days.

7)  She makes well-coreographed music videos.

8)  She eats everything, but fruits, vegetables and smoothies are among the favorites.  On the phone with Nana today she bragged that she gets to eat fresh foods at her new house.  What eight year old says that?

9)  She tells us what she thinks and feels.  Against all odds, she trusts.

10) In a couple hours, she’s going to bound into our room and leap into our bed, hugging and grinning like it’s the best day ever.

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