Attachment - A long process

It seems like with M we have passed through many phases of attachment. When she first came home we went through a honeymoon period where we were very happy together, and happy to get to know each other. But during that time she was recovering from the traumatic process of being uprooted from the orphanage, familiar people and routines. She was thrown directly into our busy lives and was hauled around in the car to pick up the kids from school, or to the sidelines of a soccer game, or on one of our weekend adventures. She was amazingly accepting of all this activity. She likes to go places in the car and she enjoys being in new places and exploring. But what she didn't like was being home and taking naps. Going to sleep at night was easy, but when the molars were coming in we had some tough nights where it was hard to get her to go back to bed. One of the things that we didn't do (with any of our children) was have them sleep in our bed on a regular basis. With twins there was just no room for all four of us. Maybe we should have let M sleep with us. We even tried a few times, but if she came to our bed she would wiggle and suck her thumb all night, not sleeping, and keeping us up. It may have sped along our attachment to have her near us when sleeping, but we don't know that. We only know that none of were getting any sleep.

After just a few months Kevin was getting kisses from her, once in a while. Kevin was in love with M from the day he saw her picture. So their relationship from the beginning was strong. I also think that Kevin was just a little less sensitive to the whole touchy-feeling process of it all, so it was easier for him to bond with M and to let her bond with him. She was never afraid of him as you hear some orphans are nervous around men.

After M had been home for 6 months I was going through the pains of wondering why I didn't have this great bond with her and beating myself up about it. She was drawing away from me because she had just been through a series of really nasty colds where I had to use the nasal syringe regularly, administer bad tasting medicine, and then even apply an inhaler with a mask. I was her least favorite person. She was withdrawing from all of us at this point (although less from Kevin because he was the 'fun' dad). At that time it may have been regressive autism beginning, or her defense mechanisms setting in and shutting her down, or both.

A few months later when ABA started, she screamed the first 2 weeks. She needed me. She used me as her comfort and escape from these strangers coming everyday and spending time alone with her, trying to build rapport. At this point I felt like I had made some progress in her heart. She may not love me but she realized that she needed me.

After being home for about 15 months I think we hit a low point, M and I. She was so attached to Kevin and she was very tired of me. I must have been the caregiver that just wouldn't go away. Kevin was spending a lot of close time with her, getting her up in the morning and putting her to bed every night. I let him because I was drained from the effort I had to put into each day. In mid-December 2009 I went to Arizona for a few days when my father passed away and Kevin's mother came to watch M while I was gone. When I returned, M was actually happy to see me! It took her a couple minutes to realize who I was and that I was home, and then she was very excited. That was a much needed change, plus the few days of respite for me were good.

2010 was a great building year for our attachment with each other. It has been such hard work because M's delays contributed to her social detachedness and made connecting with her much more difficult. By May I finally felt like we had something going. And that was about a year and a half after we had adopted her! Certainly not how long I would have expected. And it was just a spark.

In September we began the whole IEP process with the school district in our town because M was turning 3 and would no longer qualify for the early intervention services she was receiving. The whole IEP process and dealing with our school district is another post altogether, but suffice it to say, the district proposed that M go to a county program for kids with autism. It was a full-day 5 days/week program with changing therapists every 15 minutes. People would come and go in the program depending on their staffing needs each month. Despite the fact that the facility reminded me of an orphanage, one of my main reasons for not sending M there was because of how tenuous our attachment was. It had taken 18 months to feel like she needed me. And even that was tenuous, because she would experience setbacks in her trust levels with us. I wasn't about to let her leave the home full-time (especially to a poorly managed program) and have so many different people come and go throughout her day that she couldn't establish trust and a relationship with. Our disagreement with the school district is ongoing because they don't understand this. They have no idea what to do with a post-institutionalized child.

I am so glad that I held out because M is now showing me spontaneous affection and it is absolutely WONDERFUL! In the past few weeks she has been hugging me because she wants to, and really holding on. She has been giving me kisses and touching my face. It's the most wonderful thing in the world.

It's only taken 2 and a half years.

And we're still working on it.

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What IS it?

This weekend we had dinner over at our friends' house. Their son is a year older than C and K and was also adopted from Russia when he was about a year old. Now that the years have passed, the difference in age (although only a year) has disappeared and he and the twins really enjoy spending time together. His mom, HM, is one of my closest friends and has been a major support to me through M's adoption and time home. I love her because every time I sit down to vent about some funky thing that M is doing she says, "Vladdie did that" or "That sounds a lot like Vlad at that age." This gives me great comfort because Vlad, although still experiencing some challenges with regard to his first year in an orphanage, is doing spectacularly. I credit HM and her husband because they are amazing parents: patient, kind, and continually going the extra mile to make sure that Vlad gets all the help that he needs. They are great role models. I am blessed to have them in our lives.


So, one example of commonality that M is going through right now is her sensitivity to certain clothes. She gets used to certain clothes and then when you try to get her into something different we have a battle, then she screams like she's dying, then about 10 minutes later (if you can keep her from ripping the clothes off) she forgets about what she's wearing and she's fine. (That's because I'm a stubborn $%^&*... uh mama.) HM said, and I'm paraphrasing, "Oh yeah, we hated the season changes because Vlad would freak out. When we put him in shorts he would scream, 'My legs are showing! My legs are showing!'" Well, that's M, yanking down her leggings to make sure that no skin is showing. Yanking on her short sleeves because, dammit, they should be down to her wrists. Sometimes I give in, when we just need to make forward progress through the day. Other times when I'm not so pressed for time I help her work through it. I'm going to have to save some time to get her into that Easter dress I just ordered for her.


Another example is that she's hyperactive. Vlad was in constant motion too. When M is feeling good (i.e. not sick) she's in constant motion. Running through the house, hopping up and down, sometimes beating her chest. She is a sensory-seeker. She likes to put stuff in her mouth, particularly her thumb. The pica (mouthing objects ) has thankfully slowed down. Sand and dirt-eating has pretty stopped as of last year. Putting grass and leaves in her mouth is still a problem although it's not as severe. It's interesting because she likes foods that have a lot of flavor. Olives, grapefruit, bacon, pickles, salad dressing. And she likes crunchy food. She'll eat potato chips but hates potatoes otherwise... too soft or perhaps too familiar to that mashed potato soup she would get everyday for lunch in the orphanage.


So what should I think? I think it's encouraging to hear that Vlad experienced many of the things that M is experiencing now, and that he came through them to be a successful, happy boy doing well in school, sports and forming friendships. I think M has some deeper learning issues that he probably didn't experience. And now, after 2 years of ABA, I am at the point of wondering if her issues are just institutional autism+learning disabilities or if she truly did have classic autism. I don't know if I trust the experts' diagnosis because autism can be a convenient catch-all, especially for those unfamiliar with post-institutionalized children. On the other hand, maybe it's a sign of great progress for M that I am even asking these questions. Maybe, just maybe, it means that she is 'recovering' from her autism. I'm not sure. I'm just happy that she is becoming a more engaged and loving little girl!

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Dark Days Behind

I just reread the past two posts and a few things come to mind. First, I'm happy that I it hasn't been a whole year since my last post. Second, my writing has suffered terribly over the past 10 month hiatus because I've only been making FB posts. And third, the past two years were really hard. Those two posts were pretty dark.

M is 3 and a half now. She just recently started preschool and is attending at the school right next door to this coffee shop where I sit for the next half hour. If I buy a cup of coffee then I get 47 free minutes of WIFI. I thought, why not get that blog dusted off?

My reasons are partly selfish in this. I need to reconnect with the international adoption community because there are issues that I don't fully understand with M that I'm hopeful others can help with. I've been trying to find some kind of intersection between the autism and adoption communities and I have found none. It's been a very lonely place to be the past couple of years where I feel like we've been charting the waters alone. I don't expect that will get any easier, but maybe it will. And then maybe there are others experiencing some similar issues to what we've been going through that I can help with.

That said, M is making good progress. She has been receiving ABA therapy for almost 2 years now and while she still has a long way to go to get caught up to her peers, I think she's closing the gap. What I see as her main challenges now are that she is still unable to talk and she is unable to focus on things for more than a few seconds which makes it very difficult for her to learn from others. Imitation is coming along, but her memory is short so learning involves a fair amount of repetition for her. From her listening and responsiveness, her sense of humor and her mischievous nature I believe that she's intelligent, I just think that something is preventing her from learning in the traditional way that little kids do. Her hyperactivity has been increasing the past few months which makes me wonder if she's got a severe case of ADHD. I know she has sensory processing issues, because she can't stop moving and bouncing. We recently started speech therapy with her and I'm really happy that I did. I also feel a little guilty that I didn't start it earlier, however, my thoughts were that she wasn't even paying attention or imitating enough to get anything out of it. A lot of her speech therapy is simply more imitation and organized play. The goal of the speech therapist is to get some organization going in that muddled brain of hers.

We also started preschool last month at a Montessori preschool. I'm very excited about this because M has been sequestered in our house getting hours of ABA therapy, leaving her no time to be with her peers. So now she is learning to sit through circle time and sharing a couple of hours of week with other little ones, playing outside and doing simple activities in the classroom. She goes with one of here ABA therapists, which is a great thing, otherwise M would be into everything. Did I ever mention that she is a wild one? That's one of the reasons I haven't been able to get the time to sit down and write.

Half hour's up. Gotta go.

Some honest blogging

A dear friend of mine is starting a new blog: The Honest Mom Blog. Her writing is witty and engagingly honest. Please send some page hits over her way.

On the home front, with all the turmoil brewing due to the recent returned adoptee story, I feel the writing juices starting to flow, even to just explain how our adoption hasn't been all peas and peaches. I don't have the time at the moment, but I hope that very soon I can get something out here in the bit bucket. Suffice it to say, our journey hasn't been easy, and while I believe that Artyom's adoptive mother acted wrongly, I sympathize with her and the despair she must have felt as she became so overwhelmed that she made that very regrettable decision. I have felt despair too. And I knew, thank God, that when that 6 month point came around, that we would be going through some of the hardest times ever. At six months I was wondering why M and I weren't bonding, why didn't I have this amazing love for my newest daughter yet, why was she avoiding us and not making eye contact? Why would she squirm and struggle to get away if we tried to engage her or teach her something? Only one month later we were told she might have autism. Now that was a healthy dose of despair.

That was a year ago. But I had decided that despite whether I felt like I loved her, I WOULD love her. And finally, just in the past two weeks, she's been giving us real hold-on tight hugs. It only took one and a half years! So our bonding has been an ongoing, very slow process. None of this love at first sight business for us.

Hang in there if you're having a tough time. Some of the adoption stories are hard to read and not everyone has a happy ending. But you have to have hope. And one of the best things you can do is keep a journal and write down the positive progress. It doesn't even have to be every day. But that's what got me through that really low period. That, and margaritas with my good friend V.

I guess I did have a few words in me tonight.

Love Monday

I love Mondays.

After a long week and busy weekend, on Monday morning M's interventionist shows up at the door with a smile and a big bin of toys, ready to spend the next two hours working with M.

The weekends are hard because M has no structure to her days. We are tired from the activities going on and when M gets tired she is uncooperative and unresponsive. It's difficult to spend the intensity of time with her that she requires because the twins needs attention too. By the end of the weekend I am drained and anxious for Monday.

They call themselves behavioral interventionists. I suppose this is the most accurate term, but try explaining this to someone who doesn't have any idea with Applied Behavioral Analysis is, let alone autism. I usually call them therapists just to keep it simple.

These saintly people have been coming to my house 2 to 3 times daily for 2 hours at a time. The program directors also drop by to watch the sessions and to work on parent training with Kevin and I. In October we had her 6 month assessment and review. We were all very hopeful, but the data on the page said she still wasn't even near her peers in social, cognitive or other skills. The program directors pointed out though that the progress she had made wasn't measurable on those scales yet because those first 6 months were spent teaching her to attend and she was doing it! They were all very fond of her and because she only had a year to go in the program before she turned 3 (and aged out of the county funding) they wanted to push her harder.

Starting in November more sessions were stepped up to 3 per day. A new interventionist was added to the team. Parent training was increased. And guess what. M started requesting things by pointing. Never before had she asked for anything. This past week M started making sounds for what she was requesting. "Buh" for bottle and "Bee" for beads. M started imitating even more... clapping whenever we clap, dancing, dusting, sweeping, pushing buttons on her toys.

She tests me more. Throwing her sippy cup to get my attention. Standing in her high chair. The occasional bite. Purposely ignoring me. That one is tough.

Another thing that M has developed is an intense attachment to Daddy. I have read that developing a strong attachment to one parent is a good thing because it means that the child will eventually be able to generalize that attachment and then begin attaching with other members of the family more easily. I see this happening between M and C. This morning when he came into the kitchen for breakfast M was chasing him around happily and leaning all over him. And K got her first long-awaited kiss this weekend. That was a huge milestone because K was patiently - so patiently - waiting, knowing M had given each of the rest of us kisses already.

But I have to wonder if M's attachment to Daddy isn't just a bit obsessive. She's going through separation anxiety with him if he even puts his jacket on near the door or steps into the bathroom. I know this may be a good sign too... I remember the twins as babies having meltdowns whenever I stepped out of the room. But last night as I was settling M with a bottle before bed, Kevin briefly stepped into the room to say goodnight. He left, closing the door, and for the rest of our time together M refused to look at me. She would only stare at the door in anticipation. It was strange, and a little disheartening. What was motivating this kind of behavior...? Is it emotional, or compulsive? Kevin's been doing a lot more early morning and go-to-bed nurturing lately and we decided we'd better balance that out. When he's around, I'm pretty much the wet dishrag to M. If anyone has had similar experiences regarding attachment I would love to hear what your take is on all this.

We've been pretty good at keeping M on her gluten/soy/casein free diet. Until the weekend before last. She snagged a Twix bar from C's room, ate two red-dye plaque tablets out of the bathroom drawer, and was given bread by a clueless guest at a birthday party. The first two days we didn't see any changes and then suddenly she was a space cadet. She would stare at some odd thing, something with angles and shadows, and just laugh with a goofy smile. She hasn't been feeling pain from head bumps. She let me hold her without squirming to get down. Didn't answer to her name. Finally after 3 days of spaciness, she moved into the can't stop moving, agitation phase. Yesterday and today she seems more like her normal self.
Thankfully it didn't throw her off too much in her sessions. But if I had any doubts that the diet was making a difference I don't any more. That was just plain weird and unpleasant.

I do love Mondays.

Headlines - M turns 2, Life races on

Greetings! This is a quick post without much effort because I've been wanting to blog for weeks but haven't had the time to put more than two sentences together (aka Facebook). Things are going well, but not without the rollercoaster drama that seems to encompass us all. I hope to elaborate later. In the meantime, if you don't use Bloglines or Google Reader to follow your blogs (and mine), please check it out... then you can keep up with me without checking in everyday and eventually giving up on me for a dead blog.

In summary, M has been doing so well with her ABA sessions. She's paying attention, following directions, interacting, playing with toys, and becoming affectionate. I've also had her on the GFCFSF (gluten free, casein free, soy free) diet for 6 months and I believe this has helped some too. We just had some additional biomedical testing done and found that she does have food sensitivities... beans, for example. So for the last week I stopped feeding her egg whites, beans (even green beans), and peanuts. And I think she's been doing even better. I know I don't feel like doing anything when my tummy hurts... I wonder if this may be something. Even with a a cruddy-nosed cold this week it seems like she's doing better.

Given that, the doctor (a DAN doctor... DAN for Defeat Autism Now) told me I should put her on a rotation diet. Huh? There aren't enough types of milk even! I'm seeing a pediatric gastroenterologist Monday to see what she says about M's test results and if this rotation diet is necessary. The gastro has a nutritionist on staff that might be able to help me more than the DAN doctor (he said, "It's easy.. grind your almonds at night and soak in water overnight.").

M had her two year checkup... she's 90th %ile in height and 75th %ile in weight. Not bad for coming from an orphanage a year ago. Her gross motor skills seem right on track. Fine motor a tiny bit behind. Social/developmental skills about a year behind, in my estimation. I don't know if this is normal for a child adopted from an orphanage at 11 months. No one I have consulted with has had any experience with institutionalized children. My expectations were always that she'd be caught up by now, but it hasn't happened. I have to keep in mind that she's making forward progress and focus on that. I have more hope now than I had 6 months ago.

Now for a few pictures...

The birthday girl! M turned 2 last week.

M and her sister and brother. Cute as a button!

Fun in the tub.

C and his barfkin for the Cub Scout pumpkin carving contest.

C cutting metal reinforcements for the post holes of the tree house Dad is building.

Squeegie Milestone

I saw a huge milestone reached tonight.

Earlier when I was using the squeegie to clean the glass in the shower, M wanted the squeegie and she tried to clean the glass too. This may not seem like a lot for a toddler to do, but it's the first time M has ever taken a tool and copied its use from watching me and letting me show her what to do. It's huge! I think she's starting to get it.

We all went to Raging Waters today in San Jose. It was a loud, wet and sunny place where you spend a lot of time waiting in line to go on each waterslide. (I could go on and on about how poorly managed the place is.) Surprisingly, there were so many little play pools that is was a lot more fun for M. She had a great day outside in the sun today and tonight I have never seen her before in such a playful affectionate mood, even though she was laying on the floor, exhausted. (It makes me think we need more sun on our property. Oh, and a pool. With a waterslide. That would be nice.)

In her sessions this week she has been repeating some sounds during sound pairings. A month ago she wasn't repeating any sounds. This week she has also been working on pointing, and she is reaching for things now. She just doesn't have the proper closed fingers, index finger out hand position. I have also noticed that she is looking for her sippy cup and reaching for it when it's on the kitchen counter. She has never searched for it before this week. Instead she would just have a roll-on-the-floor tantrum when she was thirsty. The other thing she did today was a small, simple match bowl with bowl.

Tonight was special because I think M realized even more that we are her family. She seemed so at ease with us and was very happy to be with us. It felt really good.
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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.

Interview with Dr. Federici

This is a great interview with Dr. Federici that I discovered through FRUA. He has extensive experience in the field of neuropsychology and how adopted children have been affected by their early time in institutions. I highly recommend anyone who has adopted a child from an orphanage setting take a few minutes to listen to this.

Dr. Federici also has a website with several articles he has published over the years on the effects of institutionalization. I originally discovered his website by googling institutional autism. He also has a book, "Help for the Hopeless Child" which I haven't read but am going to look into.

Two months progress (and a trip to Tahoe)

My favorite activity at Tahoe... isn't that what Kevin and I seem to do with everything we do?

Thank you all for your kind comments on my 'coming out' post. It's encouraging and liberating to be able to share what has been going on. I wanted to share some good progress that M has been making, plus some photos of our recent annual camping trip to Tahoe!

The car was packed so full we couldn't see daylight out the back. It was worse on the way home... laundry expands!

In June we increased M's ABA therapy hours from 50 to 100 per month, which works out to about 2 2-hour sessions per day. We usually do one early in the morning and another in the afternoon. There have been several rough points where either she didn't have the stamina, or simply didn't want to follow the instructions given by her interventionists. Thankfully, M's whole team communicates with each other daily and when she is having a hard time one of the Ph.D.s comes out to help and make adjustments to the program. As soon as they introduced a little chair for M to sit in for the work part of her sessions she stopped crying so much as she was able to distinguish better the difference between play time and work time. A good day is when I hear the interventionist whooping it up, giving her lots of loud verbal praise because she is starting to imitate sounds or follow very simple directions.

In the past two months I have seen M's attending skills improve (awareness, paying attention, tracking sounds, eye contact) tremendously. She looks at us almost all the time now when we call her name. She was tracking her cousins when we were all at Tahoe last week.

The kids on the hike from Vikingsholm to Bliss State Park... a total of 4.6 miles, their longest hike yet.

The major change has been that she is starting to imitate very simple tasks. Shake bells and push car... but as she makes progress the tasks will become more complex until she develops the ability to imitate and learn on her own. She is also starting to vocally imitate during her sound-pairing. She babbles all the time now. If she's not babbling then I know something is up... she's hungry, thirsty, tired or not feeling well. These are all good signs!

One of the spectacular views from the Rubicon Trail.

On the attachment front, yesterday I had some time to sit down and hang with her all morning because she only had an afternoon session. (The sessions keep her so busy... I feel like frequently I only have time to dress, feed and put her down for naps between sessions and shuttling C and K around). I had to go down to the car to get something and for the first time she stood at the gate at the top of the stairs and cried like a normal 'separation anxious' toddler. She was needy yesterday too... always wanting to be near me and touching me. It was such a great thing for her (and me). (If only she'd taken a nap....)

M doing one of her favorite activities during camping. She loved the freedom to run around!

educating Sandy

I've been sitting on this post for a long time, unsure of how to relay the tumult that we have been through the past two months. Or if I should even relay it.

I left off the last post with two calls out, one to a child psychologist and the other to the early intervention program in our county. I am so glad that I made those two calls. While it may not be fair to compare M to C and K at the same age, I am so glad that I pulled out those old tapes that day. While I thought I was only seeing a learning delay, it quite possibly was more.

Our visit to the child psychologist was eye opening. Both Kevin and I took M and were hoping to gain some insight into what the root of some of M's behaviors were. She was withdrawn. Her eye contact was spotty. She rarely responded when we called her name. She wouldn't engage with us when we spent time on the floor with her trying to teach her how to play with her toys. She wasn't talking, and had stopped babbling. She didn't point. And she still hadn't learned to wave bye-bye, after 6 months. She hadn't learned to copy us doing anything. Was it attachment? Effects of institutionalization? The psychologist shot straight from the hip at us. She thought M was showing signs of autism. We were shocked. In denial. We frantically searched for some other reason. Perhaps institutional autism? With some attachment issues? When I finally had the courage I got on the internet and started searching. Reality started to sink in as I recognized that some of M's quirks matched with the symptoms described in autistic children. After a couple days of blackness, I realized that I would need more time for acceptance but that I would also need to act quickly.

So we did.

The early intervention program sent someone out to assess M that had a Ph.D. in Psychology and ran an ABA program here in the area. While it was hard seeing how low M scored on the assessment, I was glad because it confirmed my worries when I made that first call. As a result, M initially qualified for 100 hours per month of intensive behavioral therapy. We started her out at 50, or 10 hours per week. The program started after Easter and we are in our 5th week now. M has a team of 4 people, plus our EI case manager. She has at least one two hour session every day with an interventionist whose job it is to teach her how to learn through repetition and positive reinforcement. The first two weeks were hell. She cried through each session in anger and despair. Finally toward the end of the second week she started to settle and by the end of the third week she didn't cry at all. Already we have seen improvement in her eye contact and responsiveness to her name. Even in the first two traumatic weeks we saw her come out of her sessions with more interest in her toys than we had ever seen.

We started M on a GFCF (gluten-free casein-free) diet by removing all dairy, gluten and finally soy. We saw good improvement in her responsiveness when first removing the dairy, and her big tummy flattened out. Not much of a difference with gluten removed, but again we believe she's been more interactive with the recent removal of soy. It's subjective. Our next step is to double her hours of ABA treatment so that she is receiving the 100 hours per week, which is around 2 2-hour sessions daily. We also have an appointment with a biomedical physician next month who will evaluate her health and determine if she has any problems with vitamin deficiencies or heavy metal poisoning.

M has no official diagnosis of autism. We have just been fortunate that our early intervention program recognized her delays and decided to treat her symptoms with ABA therapy. We don't know the real cause of her delays. It could be genetic or environmental. Certainly spending the first 11 months of her life in an orphanage didn't help and it very well could be a form of institutional autism, where the symptoms slowly fade over time. We also don't know the effects of the vaccinations she received in Russia, nor possibly the ones she received since she arrived home with us. We did delay her 18-month vaccinations until after she reaches the age of two. But whatever this is, we are aggressively treating it in as many educated ways as we know how. She is very young, and studies statistically show that many hours of intensive ABA therapy produce the best results for children with these symptoms. Our ABA team was encouraging when their goal from the start was to have M mainstreamed into preschool by the time she turned 3. I think her progress just in the past two weeks has us thinking that this could be reality. I certainly hope so.

My reluctance to blog about this stemmed originally from my own uneducated perception of autism. From the first moment we heard that word our lives and our future swirled around us like we'd been flushed down the toilet. We felt despair and isolation. Honestly, my attachment to M took a big hit because I didn't know if I would ever really KNOW this little girl that I had hoped to raise. Finally I realized that God has given us this little girl for a purpose... why otherwise did we see the miracles that took place to pull our dossier together and bring us to Russia successfully three times last summer. In all my skepticism I cannot deny that M was meant to be with us. In my darkest hours during the past two months, M has given me glimmers of hope, like when she started babbling back to me 7 weeks ago. When she started pushing her activity walker around last month. Yesterday when she quickly turned around and looked at me smiling when I called her name.

In a way I feel like I'm still waiting to meet her. Waiting for her to come out. Every milestone now is sweetly savored. I take great joy in her accomplishments. Today she ran while pushing her baby stroller from room to room. She is babbling now with intonation... there are thoughts behind those sounds! I swear that when she starts talking I hope she never stops.

We have a long way to go, but I am thankful for each little bit of progress. I hope that sharing our journey with M and some of what it entails will help and encourage others. My own hope grows because of others who have shared their stories with me.

Big guns

This is just a quick follow-up to the last post. I probably shouldn't even be blogging but I am so appreciative of the last few comments and I have some thoughts I'd like to share.

A large part of M's regressive behavior that we saw I now believe was due to the fact that she was miserable with her cold and the teething. As soon as the cold released it's hold upon her ears and nose, and the final eye tooth broke through it was like we had a different child. She was so happy! She started babbling again. Her favorite thing to do right now is to run-walk back and forth through the house. I've been taking her out more now that Little League games have started and she loves it! She can march around on the black top at school or play with the grass. She's not running her mouth on the ground any longer so I feel comfortable setting her down and letting her go. I've also pulled out the "activewear"... (the denim) so that she can get dirty and not destroy her good clothes. With the warmer weather I've been opening the doors and letting her run around on the deck and she loves it! I've decided that I need to get her out to see her own kind, so we've been to the park, for walks and yesterday to a Music Together demo at the library. That's a pretty cool program and I think she liked it, but she wasn't engaged with the activities... she loved having a rattle and a scarf to run around with. But while all the other children sat with their mommies she kept trying to run off.

I wonder if she's getting sick again (sigh) or there are hills and valleys in this attachment process. The wall came down briefly and now she's building it back up. Kevin was away for 2 nights and I wonder if that had anything to do with it. I've been the one to put her to bed at night so I wouldn't think that it affect her too much but I don't know. When he gets home at night he has so much energy with her and plays with her with enthusiasm that I can't seem to muster. (I have to pace myself or I won't make it through the day! Can you say even-keel?) So perhaps she missed that. But this morning she's already asleep at 9:15 am after being whiny and avoiding me for two hours this morning. I hadn't "worn" her in the ergobaby for a while so I stuck her on my back to make the kids breakfast and then again later when she was fussy. She fell asleep so that tells me I've either exhausted her with activities or another bug is coming on.

I did something this morning I probably shouldn't have done. I finally pulled out the videotapes I have of the twins when they were this same age... 18 months. Can you say, "Night and Day?" They were responsive to their names. They were laughing. They were naughty. C was trying to talk with great inflection in his babbling. There was eye contact. And I was 6 years younger. Was I a different mother to them? Or is it that M is just a wholy different child? When bringing home an adopted child to a family with older siblings that have been raised since birth... is it not even fair to make any comparisons?

Alarmed at the difference between M with C and K, I resolved to bring out the big guns. I immediately went to the phone and called the Early Start program. No more mincing around because she seems like she's making progress when she's happy. It's not enough. I'm pushing for an evaluation now. I then gave another call to a child psychologist that I'd been trying to get ahold of. Divine providence intervened... she picked up the phone!! We have an appointment to go see her next Monday with M.

I know that there are ranges in development with toddlers. I've seen talking, command-obeying 17 month olds at the park that blew me away. I also saw quiet, non-participating 17-month olds at the music session. But as I slyly always sneak in the "So hold old is your little one?" so I can make my comparison... it seems that the connection between that mother and child is more defined than we have with M. Give me patience, give me consistency and give me all that is love.

The videotapes were hard to watch... it was hard to watch C and K at that age because they were so adorable! They are adorable now but not quite as innocent as babes. And it was hard to see our favorite dog, Kona, who we lost only a few months after the film was taken. And finally my grandmother was there on tape, sitting in her chair with her glass of wine, chattering with the twins. We are so blessed to have experienced the love of that time. I only want to give that to M too.

Looking forward to a good day today!

Six Months

M at 17 months... happy to be at the park!

M has been with us for six months now. It is amazing how quickly those months went by. But the milestone of her being with us for six months makes me happy and also a bit unsettled. I'm happy that our adoption was completed six months ago and that we have our baby home. I am happy that I have had six months to get to know her and watch her grow. I am unsettled because I realized that perhaps she should be a little bit further along in her development than she is. I feel like we have been coasting through the last six months getting adjusted to having a baby again, to having a third child, and to introducing a complete stranger to a life so foreign to anything she has ever known... new caregivers, new playmates, new surroundings, new language, new food, new comfort, and the whole idea of what a family is.

M, her second day home from Russia, 11 months old.

When I think back to how M was when she first came home at 11 months old, she has progressed so much. She was withdrawn and quiet. She wasn't able to process much beyond the 2 feet in front of her. Most of her time was spent picking at the floor or carpet. She would grab a rattle and shake and bang it, but never venture into the toy basket. She had a fear of baths. She had a hard time taking naps. She would only come out of her shell when we picked her up and played with her, and then she would tire and she would retreat to her thumb and close her eyes to shut us out.

Over the past 6 months we have seen her trust in us grow. Just lately she has been happy and welcoming when I return from being away for a short period of time. She still has moments when she withdraws and goes into herself, but she does not do this all the time. She enjoys playing with the twins when they pay attention to her. She watches them so attentively at dinner. Her scope has broadened from a 2 foot radius to the edge of the room now. She is babbling now and has said mama and dada a few times. She dives into her toy basket and gets frustrated when she can't pull out the toy she wants. She loves her baths and could splash all day long in the tub. I have found that with some rocking and good timing on my part, that she will take a nap. And through all of this, she still sleeps through the night about 95% of the time. She has always seemed happy and ready to be loved, grabbing onto my legs when I go about my business in the kitchen. She loves to go out to the park or shopping. She enjoys her rides in the car and one of her favorite things to do is pick up the kids from school. She gets excited when we pull into the school parking lot. She is no longer gorging herself in the high chair. She still has a good appetite, but she is starting to leave food on her tray. She is also starting to become selective about what she eats... she left strawberries on the tray today. Twice.

C and K at 18 months.

M is now 17 months old. I don't remember much about when the twins were this age, but I do remember that they were actively trying to say words like "daiiii" for Christmas lights and "dah" for dog. I recall that the only way I could get them to smile for the Christmas picture I took was to pretend like I was mad at them for banging a piece of pottery on the house. The mischief!

We've all been fairly healthy this season except for a whopper of a head cold that M came down with about 2 weeks ago. We went up to Tahoe again to enjoy the new snow and on the way back down she was showing some ear distress. Over the next week an ear infection developed, and then the head congestion hit. She was miserable, and that's an understatement. And in her misery she did what she had lots of experience doing, withdrawing. Her behavior with her cold reminded us so much of what she was like when she first came home and I felt like we had lost a lot of ground with her. It certainly didn't help that we had to administer antibiotics and pain relievers, inhalers, and the most dreaded saline drops and nasal syringe. How could she still like us and trust us when we had to physically restrain her to do these awful things we knew would ultimately make her feel better? It was a hard two weeks. Finally Friday she was well enough that we could go to the park for a couple of hours after school. That perked her up a bit. And by Sunday she was starting to act like her "new" self again, but not completely.

M... not quite feeling well yet.


But seeing her regression, and finally getting to those chapters in the adoption books about attachment (why are the most helpful chapters always 3/4 of the way into the book??) has made me feel like perhaps I should not have been "coasting" through the past 6 months. I mean, I probably wasn't "coasting", but now I am aware that I should be actively doing so much more to try to stimulate her and bring her out. I am aware that perhaps her love of textures might just be a self-stimulating behavior, just like shaking a rattle incessantly, or slapping every flat surface she encounters. I don't know. Perhaps her wandering through the house independently isn't such a good thing because she doesn't really check back with us. When I sit down with her to play and to try to teach her the cause and effect of her different toys, she is so overwhelmed that she can't make eye contact or even focus her attention on what I am doing. It's too much for her. But she loves being held and bounced and thrown around and she makes wonderful eye contact at these times. I took her to the library once for story-time a few weeks ago and she loved it. I want her to be around other children her own age and to see what it is that they can do. But at the same time it almost seems like she's very much still a baby and is not quite ready for the toddler activities like gymnastics or park play. While other 16 month olds have a shovel in hand and are banging their older sister with it, she's still digging at the sand with her fingers and trying to put it all in her mouth.

I want to hear more words come from her. At the pediatrician's office today I discussed some of my concerns and was reassured that you can't assess the developmental level of any child when they are sick. She told me to wait a week for M to really start feeling better. And then M murmurs a "mama" while I'm holding her in front of the doctor, which was reassuring in a sort of temporal way. Our doctor told us that speech really starts to develop about 3-4 months after the child starts understanding the words. In the past week I have noticed M being a little more responsive to some of my requests. I think she is starting to recognize English. And by seeing this it has encouraged me to really start labeling a lot more things for her. But I still don't feel like I have her full attention. She's not pointing, and she doesn't follow my finger when I point. She will follow the direction of my eyes though. She might also be holding back because she's not comfortably attached yet. I keep trying. And I try not to get discouraged when she tunes me out. At her 18 month checkup (only a month away) the doctor will assess her and let us know if we should pursue some speech therapy.

I've been spending more time holding her and reassuring her. I've taken to putting her to bed every night now because she is starting to bond with me more. I think this is hard for Kevin because when she first came home he was the preferred comfort giver. But I think it needs to be me right now, because I am the one who is home with her most of the day. I am also the one who is taking longer to bond. So we both need this. Lately she has been waking up once during the night or during a nap crying. Once she realizes that we are there she is comforted and goes back to sleep. I wonder if these are dreams of the orphanage.

All these things make me realize that this job of parenting an adopted child from an institution is more difficult than I first believed, because I don't know what's a quirk and what's an indication of unresolved trauma. I don't know what's causing her to shut down at times when I try to reach out to her and teach her. I am realizing that just as I had faith that we would make it through the adoption process and be able to bring M home, which at the time seemed an insurmountable task, again I must trust in God that we can help M through these obstacles that seem so foreign to us. I have a message on my machine from a therapist with whom I left a message. Tomorrow I'll talk to her and perhaps she can help us or refer us to someone who can give us some encouragement, tools, or at least reassurance that we're on track, just the slow track. The books all say that it takes time, but they never say how much or what it will be like along the way.

Finally, I am learning how difficult it is to balance the very different needs of three children. At times I deeply miss spending close time with the twins. I long for the time when it feels natural to be close to all of them together.

And now a few shots of the snow from our last trip to Tahoe...
The resort... snowland.

Swimming in a snow storm!

M and I, not swimming.

First night away from home

Last weekend we took the kids up to Squaw Valley near Lake Tahoe for some skiing and sledding. It was our first time taking M on a longer car ride to stay overnight somewhere other than home. I was a little concerned about how it would go because of her behavior at Christmas up at Kevin's parents' house. (She freaked out when we went to put her jammies on at the end of the evening.) To our great relief, she made no complaint about being away from home. We had no trouble changing her, or putting her to bed in the strange place. She slept through the night in a different crib, although we brought her blankets from home to sleep with. She played and enjoyed the company of the twins. She ate well, despite having to be strapped into the jog stroller for breakfast each day. It was the only tray we had. The only fuss she made was when we went out for dinner Saturday night (too fancy of a place for her, she had to cause trouble) and on the way home between Sacramento and Stockton. She was telling us she was done with car ride or it could have been the smell of Lodi. Either way, we patted her leg and comforted her through it, and then she gave it up and slept the rest of the way home.

Saturday Kevin and the twins skied while I bounced M around the cross-country trails in the jog stroller. We stopped for lunch at Bistro 22 in the Village for some sliders and green beans. That kid can eat!

Sunday we grabbed our sleds and took advantage of the sledding hill right behind the hotel. M was a great sport and patiently sat through every sled ride we took her on. She liked riding the sled up the hill the best.

M wouldn't keep her shoes on and we were poor parents and let her sled in her cotton socks. Heck, it was a warm day. Soon her socks were soaked and her little feet were cold. I dried and warmed them but had no other socks for her so I ended up putting her mittens on her feet and shoving the shoes on over them. She had a cute little mitten thumb poking out of the tongue of each shoe. Kinda like a monkey. We had a good laugh.

Proudly, Kevin and I outlasted C and K on the sled hill. By the afternoon they were rolling around in the snow, whining and crying. Not bad for being in our late 20's.

Wiped out.

A welcome new year... now with pictures!

Making Christmas cookies for the piano recital.

I have been meaning to write for so long but when the holidays happen with three children, one being a newly adopted baby, blogging takes a back seat.

Cub scout taking M for a ride.

Playing in the hallway.

Kevin took the kids (yes, all three) up to see his parents this morning and I have the WHOLE day to myself. I started with a half hour of piano playing, cleaned up the breakfast dishes, and now I'm transferring files to my new Christmas present!! Oh yes, I am so very spoiled. Kevin bought me a new MacBook Pro for Christmas... the new 15". It's sooooo fine. I talked him into it because he can now test the Netflix movie player with its Intel processor. The kids aren't allowed to touch it. And that only lasted about an hour.

M and Dad selecting a Christmas tree.

Because I had no idea (no, none at all) this was going to be my Christmas gift I went and bought myself an HP Photosmart C7280 printer to go with it. The photo printing quality of this new printer shames my old g85. I am very happy with my new technology.

So my next task is to set about updating my blog with a post while my files are transferring. Got my hot cup of coffee on the table and music playing louder than usual. Logs on the fire. All those little things you can't really enjoy when the house is full.

K making the tree look pretty, just by standing next to it.

So, what's up with M? She's doing very well. Thanksgiving was her first holiday with the family and she was a trooper. She was a bit overwhelmed being surrounded by all her cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents, but she was curious and attentive. She had smiles for everyone when she wasn't sucking her thumb. After two days of parties and outings with the family and two molars working their way through her inflamed gums, she needed some rest. After a Monday of general crankiness and no sleeping (her AND me) on Tuesday emerged a child with a new tooth, a new outlook on life, and the ability to walk all over the house. M had figured out how to lift her knees when she walked and no longer was she tripping on her toes. What a proud moment for her. She started digging in her toy basket with and walking all over the house with more confidence than I had ever seen.


The whole tree ensemble this year. M didn't really take an interest in the tree until after Christmas when she would grab at the ornaments or shake the limbs until some needles came off to snack on.

I remember those leaps and bounds the twins would make after being together with their cousins. They would be fascinated and overwhelmed all at the same time with the older children. There would then be a day of processing everything that happened. They would more often than not get sick with whatever was passed around during the get-together. And then they would make developmental leaps and bounds that would astound me. It is the same with M.

C working on his Lego train that runs under the Christmas tree. M left it alone, for the most part.

Then I went a did something I probably shouldn't have done. I planned a holiday cookie exchange party for all my friends and their kids. It was so much fun (we had almost 50 people here, with more than 2/3 being kids) and I would probably do it again, but it wasn't the best thing for M. In the days I spent preparing for the party, the time I spent with her was reduced and it showed. She knew me as a busy person buzzing around her and she would only light up when either the kids or Kev were home. The party was a huge success but for M's sake I was happy when it was over. It took a couple of weeks for me to realize that we were making progress with attachment again.

Dressed up for the Christmas picture.

Christmas Eve we always spend with Kevin's family at his parents' house. M seemed much more comfortable this time with her cousins and kept trying to chew on the presents. But toward the end of the night when we were trying to get her into her sleeper for the two hour ride home she FREAKED out. Hysterics. I wondered if she thought we were going to leave her there. (It was probably just about time for a new caregiver change... 4 months?) After wrestling her into her jammies I picked her up and held her close and she inserted her thumb into her mouth and with a last whimper was comforted. Kevin wasn't able to comfort her at all.

She had to have me.

Since then she has been following me all over the house. She almost runs to me and gives my leg a hug and an open-mouthed kiss. (We all fear that she will bite us... she's got the teeth of a beaver. Very apropos that my friend, Garnet, sent her an OSU Beaver sweatshirt. We love it!)

Tasting the presents.

I've since been able to calm her hysterics during bath-time too. I was really worried that she was developing a water phobia. We can't have that in this family. All of our vacations are somehow centered around water. She HAS to be able to swim. I think she was afraid of hot water and soap in her eyes. We're doing much better now in the bath. With lukewarm water she comes out a little cool but she's happy. She runs a little hot, anyway.

M with her dog from Grandma and Grandpa. It doesn't shed!

M's babbling has increased and we think we are starting to hear the beginnings of words. We can't really be sure yet, but we think we've heard 'all done', 'da da' and I know I've heard 'ma ma mwahhhhhh'. She has recently been vocalizing loudly like she wants to tell us something, or be part of the conversation. I believe she is starting to recognize some English now and perhaps is making some mental connections between the heard word and the spoken word.

M in my ERGObaby pack. This thing is the BOMB! I can carry her on my back, front or side. She loves being so close to me. It also helps her fall asleep when she's fussy. Go out and get one right now!


A few days ago I heard M have her first belly laugh. It was a moment of pure joy for her. And then when she saw me laughing with her she became self-conscious and started sucking her thumb!

My aunt came to visit us for a few days after Christmas and we were all so happy to see her! She finally was able to meet M and M was quite responsive and happy with her. I made a turkey on Sunday so we could all enjoy a holiday meal together. Today I'm going to eat the last bit of dressing and gravy. I have no one to share it with. What a shame.

Our turkey dinner for Carole and our friend Jolanda.

So each day we continue to learn more about M, and she continues to become more confident, loving and happy. I've been reading "Toddler Adoption, the Weaver's Craft" by Mary Hopkins-Best. It has helped me through the tougher times when I feel like I have not had enough patience to be kind and loving to M. (i.e. middle of the night, when teething, overstimulation and congestion all mess with M's usually wonderful sleep patterns.) Reading has always helped me through tough times with the kids... not by changing the kids' behavior, but by changing my perspective. I suppose it's always like that.

With an adopted child it's difficult because you don't know what it was that they experienced before they came to you. With M's outlook on life, her flexibility and happy demeaner, her reaching out and showing us love and affection, I know something good must have happened in those first 11 months. And I am thankful.


Carole with her nieces and nephew at Natural Bridges State Park.

C and K are both doing well. I have been so happy to have them home for the past two weeks. It will be sad when they have to start back to school on Monday. I'm not looking forward to it. We have been having a lot of fun playing games together and reading books. Sometimes I can even get one to take a hike with me around the neighborhood.

Now, on to Christmas (or, um, holiday cards) cards, post-placement and readoption paperwork, and hopefully some exercise.

May the new year keep you in health, happiness and with no worries.
.

Long days, gone quickly

I've been meaning to sit down for a long time to type out some thoughts about what life has been like these past three months but I haven't been able to get anything down more insightful than "Here's what we did yesterday!"

Being an adoptive mother is a challenge. M is a wonderful girl, but there is so much more to being her mother than just going through the normal motions of motherhood. The attachment process is hard work. I'm not sure what it is that I expect. I have seen M light up like fireworks when Kevin pays attention to her. I hear her squeal for joy when C or K pays attention to her. And this is absolutely wonderful! She responds to me too, but not quite as vigorously, or perhaps I am seeing her response to me through a guarded perspective. She definitely prefers me to other friends that hold her. She makes the best eye contact when I change her, feed her, carry her, and always when I strap her into her car seat (funny... like she's saying, "Where are we going now?") Just yesterday, she crawled all the way from the living room, through the dining room, through the kitchen, and into the laundry room to grasp and climb up my pant leg so that I would pick her up and change her! I was thrilled and amazed. Last night when I was feeding her her bottle and rocking her to sleep, I finally gave myself permission to fully love her. Doesn't that sound ridiculous? It has simply taken me a few months to settle in to the idea of being her mother, since for most of the time I have felt more like just a caretaker. But somehow I sense that she is looking for more than a caretaker now. She deserves to have a mother that loves her wholeheartedly, and I am now that mother.



Today I woke up and felt so much more joy and freedom throughout my day. The day wasn't that much different than other days when I spend a lot of time doing laundry, taking care of M, and then picking up the twins from school and shuttling them around. But my heart was finally in the right place, and that felt good.

Another aspect of being an adoptive mom that has been consuming me is worrying that M is where she needs to be developmentally. Sometimes it seems like she spends a lot of time shaking the same rattle around on the floor. I've been trying to get her interested in some different toys. Yesterday and today I have been trying to get her to take toys out of a little container with windows and doors. Shouldn't this be something a 13 month old can do? The twins were dumping their toys, emptying my kitchen drawers and trying to open the front door at this age. Yesterday M wouldn't have it and would eventually tune out and insert thumb. Today, if I put the favorite rattle in she would grab it out. Progress.... she has a favorite toy (a set of plastic keys) and she recognizes it and gets excited when she sees it. So we walked around the house with her Fisher-Price walker and she sat sucking on a block while I built some stuff with the rest of the blocks. A little while later I peeked around a corner to see her knocking the blocks off the coffee table. Finally! Good girl! I know I shouldn't worry, but it's hard not to compare her to other babies. I know I should enjoy this baby stage but sometimes I get anxious for her to grow up a little just so that I can see some developmental milestones and know she's okay. I wonder if it will be like this for me throughout her whole childhood. I hope not, but I expect it will come and go.

I pulled out the nice handbook of articles my placement agency sent to me and found the article on developmental milestones and what to expect. And the most important development going on during the first two years of childhood is.... attachment. I know what I need to work on.



I have seen progress. She doesn't pick at the floor as much as she used to. She's crawling from room to room. She feeds herself. She is making consonant babbling sounds. She is taking steps. She is anxious to please us and is incredibly responsive to smiles, attention and affection. She snuggles in to me when she needs comfort. All of this is new since we took her into our arms not quite three months ago. She arrived with no independence or confidence. That is what I want to encourage and develop.

I think I need to go to the park, or get into some mommy/baby classes or some kind of activity where she can be around other babies. I think she misses seeing children her own age. When we went to the aquarium with the twins a month or so ago, she lit up when we were in the baby play area. She approached the other babies and tried to touch them and communicate with them. Poor thing, it was like she missed her friends from the orphanage. A couple of days ago we were at the park and I was showing her how to go down the slide. Scary! She didn't want any part of it until a 2-year-old boy got on the slide and slid down a few times. I've rarely seen her so engaged. Then she was able to give it a try again. I think she's used to observing other children her own age and learning from them... it's everything she's known. She learns from us, but even C and K are now 'big' kids that she can't quite identify with developmentally.



Last week she stayed with her first babysitter, just for a short while with C and K while I went to K's parent-teacher conference. Everything went fine. Our babysitter is the greatest! She's going to come the next few Thursday afternoons for a couple hours so that I can get to the gym. I hope it goes well. And then maybe Kevin and I can get out to see the new Bond movie. What a treat! In the meantime, I will struggle with trying to give her a secure, safe environment here at home balanced with all the holiday parties and gatherings that are coming up. Thanksgiving is going to be interesting because she will be going to a lot of large family events. I hope it is not too overwhelming for her. We won't be spending the night away from home, but I've found that when she's tired and the noise level is high that she either tunes out or gets very upset. In a few years though, she'll be contributing to the mayhem like all the other cousins.

Yes, the days are long, but they pass quickly.


Credits: photos taken by ipm during a visit to her home back in early October. ipm also deserves all the credit for helping me to create this blog back in March 2006. Thank you!