Joostoocia

Buttercup, of course, knew none of this. What she liked to do, preferred above all else really, was to ride her horse and taunt the farm boy. The farm boy did what she told him to. “Farm Boy, fetch me this”; “Get me that, Farm Boy – quickly, lazy thing, trot now or I’ll tell Father.”

"As you wish.”

That was all he ever answered. “As you wish.” Fetch that, Farm Boy. “As you wish.” Dry this, Farm Boy. “As you wish.”

"You haven’t once said you loved me.”

“I’ve been saying it so long to you, you just wouldn’t listen. Every time you said ‘Farm Boy, do this,’ you thought I was answering ‘as you wish,’ but that’s only because you were hearing wrong. ‘I love you’ was what it was, but you never heard, and you never heard.”

    - William Goldman, “The Princess Bride”

If Justuce knew how easily and completely she could wrap me around her little finger, I’d be in a world of trouble. It’s only her natural tendency to keep reminding me how rotten I am that keeps me from becoming, hopelessly, her slave. Even with her pouts, defiance and stubborn dislike, which is increasingly pretend and just for show, I’m already halfway there. If she ever figures out I’d wait on her hand and foot even more than I already wait on her hand and foot, I’d be completely screwed. She'd get away with murder.

She is a wonder. She is remarkable. She is frequently kind and she's suddenly cruel. She can do as she pleases, she's nobody's fool. Billy Joel had nothing on this girl. And we’re having a very interesting journey, coming together as father and daughter.

For weeks now, I’ve been trying different nicknames for Justuce and nothing seemed to stick. Justin was easy. From Day One, he’s been my Scooby, or much to his annoyance, Bieber-Fever.

For Justuce, I couldn’t make anything work. I tried the mushy ones way too early and she wasn’t having any of it. I tried “Bug,” my sister’s nickname growing up. I said, “Bugaboo, I love you,” just like my dad said to Erin. How can you go wrong with Bug? That one practically repulsed her. “I’m not your Bug!”

I tried “Sweetheart,” (“I’m not your sweetheart!”), and “Baby” (“I’m not a baby!”), and, well, “Pumpkin” drew daggers, so what’s a dad to do?

Then, thank heavens, along came Joostoocia. It started with Danny, an Israeli counselor at her day camp this summer, who pronounced her name with an accent on the second “U,” something we both thought was kind of giggly. “Joostooce!” he’d yell at pickup time, “Joostooce, your ride is here!” So, after teasing her with “Joostooce” for a few days, it sort of morphed by itself into a robust and healthy “Joostoocia!” delivered with a kiss of my fingers and a thumb to my lips, like the old spaghetti sauce commercial. “That’s Italian!”

So, after many false starts and missteps, I'm pleased to report Joostoocia is allowed by Justuce 100% of the time. Sometimes she even says it back to me, equally Italian. “Joostoocia!” she’ll mimic, in her hardiest, happiest little girl voice. And, hallelujah, wonders never cease, a nickname is born.

I know very little about Justuce. She’s only been my daughter for two and a half months. My Daughter’s Name is Justuce loops in my mind like a mantra, like a future book title. It seems important to keep saying that to myself, because I still know so little about her, and in many ways, in spite of the paperwork, we're still such strangers to each other.

I know she likes to stick her finger in the Nestle’s Quik container and lick the powder off the counter, even when I tell her not to.

I know she likes nail polish, really red lip gloss and the most outrageously frilly skirts money can buy.

I know she likes Flaming Hot Cheetos, My Babysitter’s a Vampire, and sometimes her brother, in that order.

I know she’s wet the bed twice since she’s been here. One time she told me about it and one time she didn't.

I know she can’t tell time, doesn’t know the value of coins, and can’t tell a one dollar bill from a five dollar bill. I know she’s repeating first grade this year.

I know she’s incredibly kind to other children and goes out of her way to help them. The camp sent a note home saying they found her helping other kids in the lunch line without being asked.

I know she has the capacity for great compassion.

I know she loves her foster moms and misses them. She’s starting to legitimately like me now, but given one-eighth of a chance, she’d go back to them in a heartbeat. Adam and I would be the summer diversion she may remember fondly for a few moments (or maybe not), but she'd glady forget us to go back home again.

I know she’ll always ask for two Pop Tarts even when she’s only going to eat one, but all things considered, that’s not too much to ask for. When she tells me to make her two, it’s “as you wish” for my Princess Bride. The extra one will sit on her plate untouched every day, and I'll quietly pick it off and eat it later before Adam comes down on her for wasting food. It’s more than a Pop Tart. It's one small Pop Tart's worth of extra dignity and control in a life where most every other aspect of dignity and control were wrenched out of her hands years ago. And if that doesn't earn you an extra Chocolate Fudge you can leave untouched, well then, what the hell's wrong with the world?

I know she has a hypersensitivity to fairness. She has an unyielding perception of what’s fair and what's not fair. What's not fair is anything that doesn’t benefit or favor her immediately.

She wants to unlock the door every time we come home. She wants to push the garage door button every time we come home. She wants to enter a room first and leave a room last, every single time. She wants everything to be her privilege, property or prerogative first. We had to invent “Kid of the Day,” to give Justin some chances too. He has sibling rivalry issues of his own, but not like hers. Not like hers.

Justuce immediately tantrums when Justin gets more. She doesn’t tantrum when other children get more, only her brother. And I don’t mean “more” in the sense of any real value. I mean “more” in the sense of anything. Justuce cried in a restaurant the other day because when the Cokes came out, Justin’s had two more ice cubes than hers. That's disturbing sometimes. That's scary.

Justuce, in the lingo of the textbooks, is inflexible, irrational and overly sensitive to change. She has poor adaptability. She has difficulty making transitions from one situation to another. She doesn’t modulate well. She is difficult to “rev up” when she’s lethargic, and she obeys in super slow motion. She’ll go to her room when told, but climb the stairs like she’s made of cement. I’m not trying to be funny. Her therapist witnessed it on a home visit once and said she’s never in her years of practice seen anything like it. That's scary, too.

Justuce is fiercely her own person. She’s not intimidated by parental authority. She’s had too many parents to give a shit, and there are times when, believe me, none of us are impressing her any more. She doesn’t care if you send her to her room, and she'll stare you down after your strictest discipline, casually combing her doll’s hair, looking up with an unbothered shrug as if to say, “Is that all you’ve got? Bring it on.”

Sometimes, when I really get under her skin and make her lose her cool, she says the most delightful thing when I yell her into action. “You don’t have to be rude!” I love that line so much, shhhh, secret, between you and me, sometimes I raise my voice a little extra when I don’t really have to, just so I can hear her say it. “You don’t have to be rude!” I’m giggling just typing it.

For the first month and a half, I was angry at Justuce and she was angry at me almost all the time. She hated me so much and wasn’t shy about telling me. This perplexed me. Astounded me. Pissed me off. I’ve never been angry at a child in my life. Kids are like cotton candy to me. I adore them so much, I’ll find the silver lining in the grouchiest cloud. But Justuce made herself so entirely unlikeable, it was all I could do to remember how much she was hurting inside. She has a great penchant for rubbing her hurt off on others. On me. And that’s a sobering reality to face. You don't expect one so young to have such a hurtful skill. But she does.

I have to remember, it’s not her fault. She didn’t ask for this life any more than we anticipated her anger. It's up to Adam and I to love it back out of her again. That might take years. And until it happens, I hope I never forget the title of that country song that's suddenly not so corny anymore. Don’t blame her, life turned her that way.

But that's to be expected and she's coming along fine. One step forward, two steps back, she's adapting to us and we're adapting to her. And honestly, even when she's grumpy she’s still loads of fun, and more and more, we’re getting to see that side.

She’s a hoot-and-a-half in the swimming pool. She climbs all over Adam like she’s known him all her life. She likes us to throw her up in the air so she can do back flips. She has Adam so well-trained on handing her the right brushes, combs and barrettes in the changing room when her hair is wet, I almost imagine him being her private surgical nurse, slapping the next scalpel into her palm. “Scrunchies…stat!”

Last week, and here’s a paternal miracle for you, when given the choice of staying home with me and Justin or going to Friday night Shabbat services with Adam, she picked Shabbat with Adam. More than one time this past month, when Adam was out of her sight, she worriedly asked out loud, "how come Daddy's not here?" So see, Hoovy, she loves you too. She’s just sneaking it in under the radar.

Yesterday on the couch, after examining herself with the precision of a mammogram manufacturer, Justuce announced happily, “My boobs are growing." That would be quite a feat, since at seven-years-old and 42 pounds, the biggest thing growing on her are her feet, and those still fit in baby socks.

I hope she doesn’t grow up too fast. I hope we can be the kind of home where a little girl, lost in limbo far too long, knows she’s safe and loved and it's okay for her to let her guard down and just be a child again. That would be my greatest wish for Justuce. That she could just be safe here now and be a little girl again before she has to grow up for real.

“You are a necessary part of a long story. Your parents and grandparents should have helped you feel your place in the story when you were yet a young child. But a while back it seemed as if everyone forgot the story. So you grew up wondering about your value and your worth. You have searched for a place where you can belong. Now, when you are older and it is harder, you must learn that your value is in being you and you belong here.” – Tolbert McCarroll, “Notes from the Song of Life.”

Look at her, everybody. She’s in her beanbag chair, watching Meet the Robinsons, wrapped in a fuzzy green blanket, eating a big spoonful of peanut butter. It’s one of the “sensory foods” The Out of Sync Child tells me is calming when kids are overly stimulated. And after an afternoon TV blackout, punishment for naughty missteps, and the resulting stir-crazy hours bouncing off the walls with her brother, it’s a round of Jif for the whole damn house. Set ‘em up, barkeep, and keep ‘em coming.

She’s utterly unaware of how perfect I think she is while I sit here watching her right now, how my love wells up, pours out and finds wings every time I look at her. Her cheeks are flushed, too much sun at the splash park this week. Her brown eyes dart back and forth from screen to spoon, a giggle at the dialogue, a little taste of peanut butter, back and forth. I just stopped typing this, got up and leaned over and smiled at her. She smiled back. She pretends to dislike me, but it’s starting to be a game. We both know we’re on a different level now and there's no turning back.

“Pick me up,” she says, a familiar request. I do, and I hold her. I sway back and forth for a minute with her head on my shoulder.

“Never put me down,” she sighs.

That will be easy, I think as I hug her even tighter.

It’s me and Justuce, coming together, and for a while at least, she wants more of my love.

“As you wish,” I whisper in her ear. “As you wish.”