Jackie’s Dance Class

Like I said on my previous blog, when I noticed that Jackie wasn’t developing as other kids, I tried putting her in various types of activities to get her out of her shell.

Before I continue I should probably explain what I mean when I say “getting Jackie out of her shell”. When Jackie was about 3 or 4 she started covering her face with her arm to avoid making eye contact. It wasn’t all of the time, but for the most part when you wanted her attention she would do it. Sometimes you would try to interact her in a game and she would play but covering her face. The only time she didn’t do it was when she was alone with me and we would be playing or doing stuff or when she was playing with her brothers. She LOVED riding her big wheel with her brothers (I remember hers was purple and pink, H’s was black and R’s was navy blue) or being in the kiddy pool with them, they would stay in there for hours. At school she did it all the time. When they were trying to get her to do something they would put her arm down and she would bring the other one up.

So back to what I started. One of those activities was dance classes. She took tap, together with her brother R, and ballet. Sometimes I would peek in and she would be doing the tap steps but covering her face. At home I would ask her to do the steps, when we were by ourselves of course, and she would say “tap, tap, shuffle” and do it. The classes went on all through the winter and in the Spring they had a recital. I not only was paying a weekly fee for their classes but I also had to buy tap shoes, ballet slippers and costumes for both tap and ballet and buy the tickets to see the recital. So recital day came, and I was in the back getting her ready waiting for her turn and when she finally got on stage she just stood there and cover her face, I think maybe she moved her foot a couple of times. The second time she was suppose to go up, I had her all ready looking so pretty and at the last minute she needed to use the bathroom, which with Jackie that meant sitting her there waiting and waiting and never doing anything but since I didn’t want to take the chance that she might have an accident on stage, I hurried and took her to the bathroom and I waited and when we finally got back her class had already gone on stage and finished. So that was money on costumes down the drain. R’s performance was great. There were only 5 boys in the class and they did a tap routine to Hello Dolly but his pants were a little big on him and he would sing move his legs and pull his pants up. Did that through the entire performance but it was great.

I also tried music classes but that didn’t work out either. Poor R had to do all the activities that I would think up for Jackie because since he was younger I had to take him with me everywhere we went.

I’ve always felt guilty for not being able to do more with Jackie and always blaming myself for her situation. Always saying “well maybe if I had done this different or taking her to different doctors or better schools, etc. she wouldn’t be the way she is now” but writing this I realized that I did do things to try to help her. Maybe I could have done more but just maybe it was meant to be and no matter what I had done or not done in the long run she would still be the way she is now. The thing that still hurts me is that I know that there were plenty of time that I had to put H and R’s needs aside because Jackie needed my attention and I was not able to do as many things with them as I would have liked to but I hope that now that they are older and have their own children they can understand what I was going through and forgive me for not being there all the time for them. I want to let them know that it wasn’t intentionally. Sometimes in life you have to do things that, at the time, you don’t realize it is affecting other people and when you finally realize it you can’t change it.

One thing I have to say is that I have to thank Jackie. Because of her, her Dad and I are the people we are today and she has helped our marriage to be stronger. Most marriages that have a child with needs end up divorcing but with Gods guidance and giving each other strength we have been able to overcome many obstacles. I'm not saying that we have the perfect marriage (because no one has and if they tell you otherwise they are lying), there are days that I want to send him to the moon and he probably wants to do the same with me but that is what marriage is all about.