Just "Sweetie" Or Just Lyme-y?

Curse you, Lyme Disease! Curse you for, well, showing up at all in our Sweetie's life. That's bad enough. But double curses to you for showing up in her life now.

Now, when she's 9 years old. When the "9 year old change" is clearly taking place in our growing Sweetie's life. When she's just beginning to dip her toe into those "tween" years. When she's already getting moody and obstinate and very much trying to become more of her own person.

Testing boundaries, testing relationships. Testing our patience.

With Lyme thrown in the mix, it just makes it that much harder to tell what's typical growing "pains" and unfortunate milestones, or an effect of the Disease on her system.

I know that Lyme can cause brain fog - memory loss, loss of concentration, fatigue, inability to understand, moodiness, etc. - and I've seen some evidence of this in Sweetie over the last few months or so. But then again, is it truly brain fog at all? Or is it just Sweetie being "just Sweetie"? Perhaps not listening as well, not understanding or remembering as well just because of the developmental stage she's in.

Or am I imagining it altogether?

One example: We were at her Grammy and Grampy's last weekend, celebrating Grampy's birthday. He asked Sweetie how old she thinks he is. This game was not too fun, because Sweetie knew exactly how old Grampy was turning because we had discussed it earlier. But before Sweetie could speak up with the right answer, Grampy suggested to her that he was "older than dirt."

This confused the heck out of Sweetie. Who was "Dirt"? What do you mean? I don't get it. He and I tried to brush the whole thing off, telling her it's just a saying, never mind. But Sweetie was really confused. She went off to play for a minute or so, but then came right back to sit by me, asking me, "No, really. Who's Dirt? I don't get it."

I explained the whole meaning behind the saying and that satisfied her wonderings. But I don't recall that, once she "got it", she laughed about the joke of it all - which would be a typical Sweetie response. She just was pleased to finally understand, and went off to play some more.

I think there was another saying about something else that day that she overheard as well, again wondering what it all meant. Not sure - it was a hectic, busy, fun day!

Another example is just the fact that, more than once, Sweetie will ask me or Hubby a question, we'll answer it, and 5 minutes later she'll ask the same thing again. Was she really not listening when we gave her the answer before? Did she forget entirely that she already asked us this? What's going on?

Today, Sweetie and I are not really getting along so well. The morning started off with her needing to take a bath. Apparently, on her way into the bathroom, she bopped her head on the doorframe. I didn't see the accident, or even hear her cry about it. But when I got there she was sitting on the toilet with her head in her hands. When I asked her what was wrong, she merely looked up sadly/angrily and pointed to where on her head it hurt. Then she proceeded to gesture to me about the door and the bang and the everything. No words, just gestures.

"So are you not going to talk to me all day? I don't help people who don't talk to me."

And, no. She didn't talk to me for quite awhile. Wrote me messages, yes. But no words came out of her mouth.

Finally, when she did start talking, it seemed like an awful lot of attitude was coming out with those words.

Now, hours later, I've sent her upstairs to her room to read or rest. She's not talking again. She had been outside riding her bike and somehow or another got her knuckles scraped a tiny bit on a tree. But do I understand the details at all? Heck no! Because she's not talking.

Apparently, to Sweetie, pain and injury = an inability to talk.

Pity. Because just when it's most important for me to hear her so I can help her feel better and fix up any existing injuries, she shuts right the heck up and won't tell me where/how she hurts or what I can do to help.

Of course, this morning and right before I sent her upstairs now, I had a stern talking to her, insisting that she talk to me and wondering out loud why it is that she won't ever talk when she's hurt or not feeling well (this is not a "today only" thing.). Especially now when words would so help me to help her! Furthermore, I stated again that I didn't understand why it is she never wants to tell us she's anything but "great." "I don't understand why you get so mad at us for asking you how you are, in general. It just doesn't make any sense to me at all!"

ANYway.... sorry... got off on a bit of a tangent there. But seriously... who's to say what's truly bringing all this on.

Maybe it is Lyme driven and she's not feeling well and/or is tired but she doesn't know how to express it, so she comes off as snippy and attitude-y instead.

Or maybe she's just being herself - "just (Sweetie)" - and this is just the beginning of what I have to look forward to, moving forward into her teenaged years.

You know, when Sweetie was little and anyone tried to "cute-ify" her name in anyway, Sweetie would stop them in their tracks and say, "No! I'm just (Sweetie)!" Her insistence that people only use her name when talking about or to her, at the time, was pretty cute, actually, even in its stubbornness. How great that she knew who she was and didn't want anyone messing around with her identity!

Now, at this stage of her development and this point in her life with Lyme, I'm just left wondering sometimes who my Sweetie is at all, and what kind of person she'll be as we move ever so cautiously into the near future years of her life.