I figured it was time for a real update on how things are. Things are going as well as they can be at almost 6 months home. Can you believe it is almost 6 months! I can hardly believe it. It seems both freakishly fast and torturously long. How can half a year have already gone by? Weren’t we just in China yesterday? AND This has been the longest, hardest 6 months of my entire life. When will it be over? (the madness that is, not my life) But here we are on the edge of 6 months, that hallowed milestone that we pray brings with it the golden glow of “we have arrived.” Yeahumm…I don’t see that happening. Especially since we will be starting Theraplay attachment therapy with Yaya next week. I better set my heart out a little further to perhaps a year. Golden glow definitely at at year. If anyone remembers their trigonometry then when I say our life is like a sine wave you’ll understand. For those that don’t remember your trig. here is a visual for you…
Yep, the ole sine wave. Hated it in high school hate it now; peak, valley, peak, valley, peak, valley. It seems we alternate each month.
June: peak (yaaaay)
July: valley (booooo)
August: peak (yaaaay)
September: valley & peak (doesn’t count we had surgery then)
October: vallley (booooo).
Unfortunately November finds us still struggling in the valley, but I am hopeful that this means December will be a peak! I don’t want to be pessimistic in this post because as I reflect on this past 6 months and what Yaya has accomplished it’s astounding and how Eden has recovered is incredible. And that Eric and I are still alive to blog about it is a miracle! But I long for some consistency and a bit of freedom if I am honest. Interestingly enough so does the rest of my family. The word for the month of November is: structure. Up until November we have had none. Zip. Zero. Zilch. We have just been trying to survive. But it is not enough to just survive and honestly having no structure is making our lives harder. All children thrive on structure and consistency for the most part and even more so for internationally adopted children. If they can accurately predict what their day will hold then they have less anxiety. Why? Do you ask? Because poor Yaya spends her day wondering when the next set of new people are going to pop in and take her away. If we can provide some consistent structure for her then she will know, for the most part, what happens next. Our lack of structure has caused her to form what is called an “anxious attachment” to Eric. Her behavior around him is unreal in that she frantically tries to stay on him at all times. She is growing more attached to him but it is anxiously so and that means that she is terrified that if she lets him go, when he leaves her sight, he won’t come back. She doesn’t trust him correctly. This has ramifications for some of her personal care. She won’t let him feed her or put her to bed. This translates into Angie having to be around morning, noon and night with almost no break from Yaya. I am restricted from going anywhere in the evenings until at least 8 pm, and by that time I’m to tired to go anywhere. (I’d like some cheese with my whine please.) Poor Eric is at a loss as what to do with her because he can’t hold her all the time and it isn’t helping anyway. He can’t really discipline her as his authoritative voice makes her cry for 40 minutes. Her behavior at times is maddening but he hangs in there. Plus, he feels helpless to help me out. Hence the Theraplay therapist.
We are using the same woman who helped us with Eden so we feel confident that she can help us. She was dead on as to what Eden needed. We have tired implementing some of the techniques that we learned to use with Eden. I also took Yaya to Eric’s office the other day to show her where Daddy goes when he leaves the house. I think it was helpful for her. I went on a schedule building binge over the past weekend and have been able to plan out our days in 30 minute increments. I know….kill me, right? It really needs to be 15 minutes…but give me a break, not even I can stomach trying to figure that out. I have totally overhauled our play room and it is resembles more of a classroom again. I drug down out of the attic a lot of Noah’s old Montessori things as well. I pulled out all the toys and I now have a weekly toy rotation plan in play. They get access to a limited amount of toys all day. Then at periodic times I bring out a bucket with about 5 other toys that they get to play with for about 30 minutes. All the books ever written on toddlers it seems tells parents to do this. I have never done it until now and I do see the wisdom and success of the idea. I also got a lot of cool stuff from the Parent Teacher Store and so we have crafts and such also available. It was a lot of work and we can’t see any immediate results but we believe in the cumulative effect. Structure+Theraplay+Other stuff = healthy attachment. That is the idea at least. OH and let’s not forget the beauty of the Public Library! It is my new best friend. Story time with Jeremy every Monday at 9:30 and Story time with other random chick Wednesday at 9:30 is the BEST! Yaya is really enjoying it! Also, need to give a shout out to Pump It Up (jumpy inflatables place). Great place for Yaya to work on her gross motor skills and she really loves that too…as does Eden.
Slowly but surely we are getting our plan in place, it is not perfect by any means nor is it fully implemented but at least there is a plan now. Having said that, the plan is exhausting and very mentally draining for me right now. I hope as we develop a routine and get the schedule tweeked right that the days will run more smoothly. I anticipate that this will come to pass. On a lighter note…Yaya can count to 10 and she is learning the signs for that. She makes noises for each number and knows that seven is a two syllable word. She also knows her basic colors: ROYGBP plus pink and black. We are working on Gray and White. She can sign all the colors. Her sign vocabulary is probably over 100 signs by now. She is so smart this girl. Her lip is healing fairly well. She is having some trouble with a couple sutures not dissolving under the skin but today we saw her surgeon and he said they were going to go away and she would be fine. We also found out today that her ear tubes are clogged. What that means we don’t know yet, I have to call the ENT. She isn’t having any problems they are just clogged. My hope is that we can just ride that along till her Jan. 7th surgery date and take care of it then. She also cut two new teeth in her lower jaw! Her balance and ability to run, jump and climb are improving but she is still behind in gross motor I believe. I contacted Hand in Hand today, which is a facility that does the early intervention stuff for kids with delays…speech therapy, OT, PT and other amazing stuff it is under the umbrella of the UCPF. Most of my friends who have adopted recently are taking their kids there. I met a lady at Pump It Up today whose son goes there. She encouraged me to “just get in the system”. So I am. I don’t know if they can do anything with regards to speech before Yaya’s surgery but they could help with the gross motor skills. So I’m pumped about hearing back from them to see how they can help our girl.
Eden finally has settled into school. She looks forward to going to school, most days. We are seeing a little increase in her frustration levels but I think the structure will help her too. Plus, we are still doing the attachment exercises with her, just not at the counseling office. She is a bit clingy to Mommy which makes days that I have both the girls all day long very trying for me as the girls compete for my attention and affection. But all in all she is growing up into a beautiful, witty, funny, smart little girl. She makes me smile just thinking of her.
Then there is Noah. He is incredible. I should just stop there. He is so good with the girls and patient with them for the most part. He takes time to play with them and includes them in so much of his play. He blows me away with his compassionate kind heart. I want to just weep at how thoughtful and loving he is. He is doing great in gymnastics and is about to start his competition season in early December. He is loving school and doing great. He is amazing.
That is enough for now. I’ll post random pictures later. Time for sleep!
