Longer Out Than In

As of last week, M has now been with us longer than she was in the orphanage. We met with our social worker last week for our 1 year post-placement report and after explaining all the hell we've been through the past four months she was very reassuring and helpful. She told us she noticed M paying attention to myself and the kids more; she wasn't closing her eyes. At the end of our time the woman said 'Bye bye' to M and she received a huge arm wave! It hasn't been repeated since then, but that's the way of this thing we're going through right now. Once in a while we get a word or wave from M, but nothing is consistently repeated.

Returning from our Tahoe vacation was hard. It took M two weeks of crying through her sessions before she started to warm up to her therapists again and get back into the program. But then she took off! Last week and this week she has been doing so well. Last week she was babbling even more. And she started doing something new, she started babbling in response to Kevin (M's favorite person) and our housecleaner, C (her other favorite person), who she only sees once every two weeks!

We went to dinner at our friends' house this weekend in San Jose and we heard a distinct, "All done" when she was being held by "Bob", squirming to get down. Jawdropping for me. She also climbed into my lap while I was sitting in a regular chair... another new thing. And yesterday, after her afternoon session, she demonstrated a very deliberate "high five" to both her therapist and I. Kevin watched her do it to me when he came home from work and I saw his jaw drop.

M's program director dropped by yesterday after not having seen her for two weeks and was ecstatic about her progress. It is so good to hear from others who recognize the great gains that she is making.

What is interesting is that while M is making great progress upstairs with her basic non-verbal imitation skills, I'm finding that she doesn't have as much energy left for me when she comes down. I was talking to one of her therapists yesterday about how I felt like I keep having to rebuild her trust in me. It comes in waves, and when I get busy and don't have consistent one-on-one time with her, she really doesn't want me holding her or playing with her. Some may say that it's normal behavior for a toddler to not want to spend time with the main caregiver when there are other people (like Dad, C and the kids) who are more fun. But I think it's more than that. I cannot discount the fact that M had multiple caregivers coming into and leaving her life for the first 11 months... whom could she trust then?

I get the feeling that a lot of her refusal to make a social connection with us is because she has some deep-seated trust issues. Maybe there are organic issues too... but I just have a sense that she still doesn't trust us completely. And that is the difficult part for me... the twins are home all day now and I'm torn between spending time with them and time with M. M and Legos don't really mix well, although less and less little bits are in her mouth these days. She's more of a babyzilla, coming to destroy the Lego city. I'm learning that if I raise my voice in reaction to something the twins have done, or even when M decides to sweep all her highchair food onto the floor and stand up for the 99th time and I get frustrated... there goes the trust. This is hard!

She may also just not have the bandwidth to do well upstairs with her therapists and still have lots of attention and affection for us at other times. Her two sessions take a lot of concentration and energy. I understand that.

At any rate, she is slowly, very slowly, starting to communicate with us. I am thankful for that. As the director was leaving yesterday, I asked her if it was typical for children in the ABA program to go through cycles of progress or if once they start making gains they sustain the momentum of the learning they have achieved. She said that usually, except in cases of illness or vacation, the momentum is sustained. I hope that is the case.