Background: Evie had two really bad nights of sleeping on Sunday and Monday nights (after having settled a little with the sleeping the few nights before that). Maybe it was because she had a visit with mom on Monday (and she knew about it on Sunday). Sunday she was up every 30 minutes to an hour between 10pm and 3am (6 times total). Monday she was in my room every ten minutes for over an hour (and some of these times I stayed with her in her room until she was asleep; and she was STILL in my room ten minutes later); and then woke up 30 minutes after that saying she "had a bad dream that the Popo shot Mama."
Since Evie's mom kept telling her to say her prayers at night, I decided to try to use Jesus/God as a comfort for her if she woke up in the middle of the night, so she wouldn't be scared. I told her that if she woke up, to just remember that Jesus is always with her and will protect her. She looked at me scared and said, "But I don't want Jesus in my room with me!" Hmmm... I asked her if she knew who Jesus was. "No." "Do you know who God is?" "No." Apparently although they pray, no one has actually explained the concept of who they are praying to. So then I tried to explain that it wasn't actually a person who was going to come into her room. That night, she woke up about an hour later while I was still awake and came downstairs and said, "I don't see Jesus in my room." Oh, my. I think in my attempt to comfort her, I may have made her more scared of some strange man coming into her room in the middle of the night!
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Evie was anxious as we passed a police car, as she always is. "Is that the Popo? Why the Popo take kids from their mamas?" I said, "Because they want to keep you safe. They have to make sure you have a clean place to live." She pondered this for a few seconds, then said, "But your house is a bit dirty." Then genuinely worried, "So is somebody going to come and take me away from you?!" I tried to reassure her that they wouldn't; and it made me so sad that she has to worry about someone coming and taking her away from the people she loves. But a part of me just wanted to laugh because Evie in her 4-year-old wisdom is dead right that my house is "a bit dirty"!!
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