Wrapping up for the year

We had a wonderful Christmas celebration at our house. The excitement leading up to it was so fun. We never thought she would sleep past 5am Christmas morning, but we were wrong. She went to bed late and must have been so exhausted from all of the anticipation that it wore her out. She didn't get up until almost 9am! Her older sisters were happy about that, they were afraid they would need to get up early. We start off the day with opening our stockings. She was the first to be handed a stocking. She grabbed it and hugged it tight, it was such a precious sight. When we started opening presents, she just wanted to start playing with the first thing she opened. It wasn't long until she was overwhelmed by it all, but her reaction to this was just to sit quietly. It was a really fun day for everyone. We have been taking care of a kitten which we decided to keep for S. We put him in a box and quickly brought him to her to open. When she opened it she exclaimed, "We got another kitty?" She wanted to know how we got him in the box, it was so cute. She wants to be able to take care of kitty herself and be responsible for him. She says she wants to be in charge of him like I am of her and to teach him right from wrong. I think he is going to be really good for her. He is so good natured, she can do anything to him and he just purrs louder.

I hope the close of 2011 brings a close to our NR work. I never imagined that we would have so much emotional work after we were finished with the program. I am not complaining though, it's just hard to see her have to go through this. We go back in January for hopefully our last re-evaluation. I am so glad we went through NR, now I can only wish that I could convince countless others to make the journey. It's just so hard to know that children can go through life with full potential after an NR program but instead function with lots of coping mechanisms and the appearance of being healed. I thought that parents who chose the 'cover up' therapies were just uninformed, but I was wrong. Maybe they lack the confidence to do it themselves, maybe it's lack of self-discipline, maybe they just don't believe it will work. I know I suffered from lack of self discipline and had big time compliance problems with my daughter. I just hope that we can be an example to others. Our journey is not as difficult as some, but I do know that is was a lot more difficult than many. Either way, I'm happy for where were are today and can't wait to write our graduation notice to the group!

What's New?

It's that crazy busy time of year, but I want to write an update before too much time goes by. S's school put on a singing performance for the parents on Thursday. We asked to watch or video a practice just in case she bailed out at the last minute. They agreed to video for us during a practice. We watched the video in amazement as she sang and went through the hand motions of the songs. We were prepared for her to get scared the day of the performance, which was also her daddy's birthday. She hesitated and said it was too loud(which it was), but bravely went up with the other children. We were not prpared for what we got to see. She was in the front, standing, and she belted out the first song, complete with hand motions. The did a song with sign language, which she did on cue. She sang the loudest and with more enthusiasm than the entire group combined. I watched with tears in my eyes that she was capable of such an amazing feat. She made it through the entire performance like a pro. I saw a side to her that I had only dreamed of. I was by far the proudest mommy in the room. Her arm motions were so enthusiastic, she would have knocked someone across the room if she bumped them by accident. My other kids were always pretty shy when they were young, and I secretly wanted to be the mom of the kid who sang the loudest and with confidence. I am so proud of her.

We went to Disney for 2 days. She went on familiar rides, but also tried some new ones willingly. she even went on tower of terror, but that was definitely a one time deal. She did okay, but doesn't want to go again. Yesterday, we went to our first Princess encounter. She was nervous leading up to it, and asked me to go with her when meeting the first princess. I told her she needed to go by herself and she did. She was very talkative and did great. She was dressed like Cinderella and the princess Cinderella was the last to meet. She was so excited to meet her and have her picture taken with her. They had a nice little conversation together. It was another 'first' for her and another proud parent moment.

A New Perspective

I was driving in the car today and I was thinking about a particular adoptive family. They are faithful people and prayed fervently for their adopted children. They have really run into relatively few problems and I began to contemplate my life. We prayed for our future daughter years before she entered our life, even before she was born. I prayed for an easy adjustment and a secure attachment. I had visions of adopting a slightly older child, probably potty trained, and more fun than actual 'work'. I got almost nothing I prayed for. I got what I didn't know I could have. It's like the description of heaven, no one knows what it's like because it is beyond what we are capable of comprehending, colors we have never dreamed of, wanting for nothing, etc, etc. I got what I didn't even know to pray for. I got a lot more patience than I thought I was capable of, I got educated on sensory processing disorder, physical therapy, occupational therapy, theraputic listening, Crossinology/BIT, feeding therapy, impacted ear wax, speech therapy, IEP's, McKay scholarships, attachment therapy, NR, retained relflexes, vision therapy, and many more. I got to appreciate what trust really means. I got the gift of love that is earned. I learned the impact of emotional trauma. I saw a child overcome more obstacles in 4 years than most people will see in 3 lifetimes. I didn't get what I prayed for, I got so much more, so much better. Occasionally I still wish that it was easier for her, but I think she will have a better perspective on life because of it. She is a fighter and she will go far. I love everyday with my darling daughter. She opened up my eyes to another world. I have a purpose beyond my family, I now have an opportunity to help the children left behind in the orphanages. I am reminded that when you don't get what you pray for, it's because God knew that you needed something different that what you wanted.

School Troubles

We are having some issues at school. It seems that the whole baby crying situation is the same. Yesterday, a child in her class cried and piched a fit which just sent her into a tailspin. She ranted about it the entire ride home. I immediately emailed the teacher. The teacher wrote back that she thought she had a great day and that the child who was the cause of all of the trouble did so at the end of the day and that it wasn't too big of a deal. I have a feeling what really happened is somewhere in the middle. I don't think they are willing to do what I ask, but I don't want to switch schools either. I will have this settled before the end of the year. Is it better to have conflict so S's issues can surface or do I isolate and protect her until she can better handle it? I am the type of person who wants to shelter my children. I would rather go that extreme than to throw them to the wolves and then have to deal with the aftermath. I do wonder if isolating her will just prolong the obvious. Looks like I need to consult with the attachment therapist. I hope I can give her everything she needs without making any mistakes. The poor child has been through too much in her short life, she doesn't need me making mistakes. She got in the car today proclaiming, "I don't want to talk about my day, okay?" I said okay and then asked her if she ate her lunch. She reacted by putting her arms in front of her face, squirming in her seat, and yelling, "I don't want to talk about my day!" She just wanted to go home and have something to eat. She hasn't said anything to me yet, I hope she will tell me later. I'm letting her have some time alone because she needs it after a long day at school. That's the lovely part of NR, it gives us lots of one on one time to have the chance to talk. I don't think anything would have ever come out had I not done NR with her. I thought the developmental catch up was difficult, I never knew how hard the emotional part would be. She was completely non-expressive with emotion until the recent past, it was so easy to not even realize that she had no emotional vocabulary. I hope this phase is over soon, it is completely draining me. It hurts me so much to know my precious little one has had such a hard time and may have some horrible memories.

Update

Well, we haven't been doing anything since our sickness. This past week was way too busy with guests the weekend before Thanksgiving and then 36 people for Thanksgiving day. I plan to get back to work tomorrow so we can graduate in January. S was exposed to babies and toddlers this past weekend. She was okay until she heard one of them cry. This has always been a trauma trigger for her. She told me that the babies were spanked for crying when she lived in China. She said she was NOT spanked for crying. She also said she didn't cry. She still doesn't cry unless she is really hurt. She has been in a period of negativity lately, I think I need to call the attachment therapist for some new strategies. She immediately goes into, "I'm bad." Now I tell her I will put her in time out if she keeps saying negative things about herself. She seems to 'get' that I don't want to hear her say bad things about herself. It is so sad, I would have never predicted she would go through this.

Finally

No school today either, but the good news is that she is finally feeling better! I can't believe how this wiped her out, poor baby. The best part of this is how much snuggle time we've had. I remember last semester of Chinese class at the beginning of the year, I saw this little girl(also adopted but a couple of years older) lean her head against her grandma's shoulder. I wondered if S would ever do that to me. My dream has come true and she does that now. Just a couple of days ago, she crawled up into my lap just to sit there to be comforted. We have come so far. My friend just told me she finshed her daughter's adoption story book. It was the first time they discussed adoption. We were talking about talking to our daughters about adoption and how we felt about it. I remember telling her that it felt like I was lying telling her she was adopted. She feels as much mine as the children I carried for nine months. I feel more protective of her and a stronger bond since I was entrusted to be her mother. I have heard so many stories of adopted children wishing they were with their first family. I hope my daughter is happy to be in our family because we love her more than words can describe. I think she will completely understand when she becomes a mother herself. I hope I live to see that day. The love of a mother is like no other. She has increased my capacity to love like never before.

Sick

My poor baby has been sick since last Friday. She has had a fever for 6 days now. We went to the doctor yesterday and he thought she probably had step. She is on antibiotics now and we got a glimpse of the former happy girl we are used to. We have done nothing for nearly a week now and Thanksgiving is just around the corner. We have guests arriving on Saturday, so we aren't going to be doing anything until they leave. Then the mad rush to Thanksgiving.

Fetal triggers, WOW!

The other day, we did the last 5 fetals in the sequence before birth. As soon as we are finished, she stated, "I want to grow in your tummy." "Can we play baby born?" This is something she made up many months ago. She hides under a blanket and pretends to be in my belly. She has not asked to do this in a long long time, it was just a short phase. We covered her up and uncovered her several times(being born) and then she stayed under the blanket while I rocked back and forth snuggling her. She stayed like this for about 45 minutes. I couldn't believe it, but I indulged her. Then she asked again the next day and I told her we could do it one time because it took a long time. She agreed and then just stayed under there for another 30-45 minutes. The next day, she was in denial mode and saying the opposite of how she really feels as a self-protection mechanism. She said she didn't want to do it anymore because it took too much time. I told her it was okay and we could do it if she wanted. Now I'm sad that I ruined it for her. My older kids are taking care of a kitten and she wants to keep it. We explained that it belongs to someone and they are taking care of it until the owner can take it. She then said, "Should we get rid of our 2 dogs and have no one?" It's so heartbreaking...

Meeting

The meeting went okay. I think they are tired of hearing me and want me to leave them alone. I want to be able to go the rest of the year without changing schools. They are willing to follow my suggestions, but I just don't think they are aware of what is bothering her. They were very cooperative, but I think I am just going to keep on them and pulling out information. I got the idea that they are dealing with bigger problems with a couple other children, so hers seem minor. But really, 8 kids and 2 teachers, that is more than manageable.

We have been dealing with illness since Friday. Poor baby has a fever, no other symptoms. She still has a fever this morning. I hope this is the last day of it. We haven't done our NR or vision in since Thursday, even then it was only some of them because she was so tired. She went to bed early. She was getting sick, I just didn't know it. She felt warm when I sent her to school on Friday, but I took her temperature and she didn't have a fever. She fell asleep immediately in the car when we picked her up from school and had a low grade fever. Poor thing, I hope she didn't feel too badly in school. I hope to get back to NR by tomorrow. We are up to 30 reps of all of the fetals, so we can be finished with them by our next re-eval.

Meeting Today

Today after school, I meet with the teacher. S happily announced thst she is staying a long day. I asked her what was different that she wanted to stay long days again and she responded, "I'm not afraid anymore." I asked her what she was afraid of and she said, "The babies, and they aren't there anymore!" Such wonderful news, but so sad that she is afraid of babies crying. She must have witnessed some bad things as a baby herself. Part of me wants to know, but part of me can't handle the pain if I know what she saw. The good thing is that children as so resilient. She will always carry her memories with her though, she will just develop good coping skills. Hopefully, before long, she will be able to repress the memories and feel safe. I hope to get back to work today with our NR and vision. We are still not with the time change, so it's early to bed and early to rise.

Fetals

We are up to the maximum reps for all of our fetals with no negative effects. I am so excited about that. We have slacked this week, it has been really hard with so much going on. I tried one session with iLs and it went really well. We are going to drop vision therapy right after our re-eval which should be coming soon. It's all just too much, especially with her staying longer days at school.

So Sad

Yesterday when I went to pick her up, she clung to me. I asked her what happened and she just wanted to be held. Of course I feared the worst. I was in the car line, so I had to buckle her in her carseat and get moving. Anyway, she was so sad because a girl in her class wanted her to stay after school with her for running club. At first she made it sound like she wanted her to come over her house for a play date. I explained that the mommies needed to know about it ahead of time. She eventually told me about the club and I told her she wasn't old enough to do it. She was so sad and so obsessed with the fact she couldn't stay. I felt so bad for her. Anyway, it seemed like she had a good day otherwise. She said the babies weren't there at lunch, hooray!!! I saw they also held her hand the entire way to class so she wouldn't run. She came home with a positive attitude, so I think the teacher is doing what I asked of her. I find it amazing that a few simple techniques change everything. I hope they continue to trust me and see that they get better results from listening to the one who knows her best.

Confused

Okay, so the teacher never called and so I emailed her. It was a big risk because of the way email communicates. She wrote back requesting a face to face meeting. I am worried she read it the wrong way. Much to my surprise, S said she wanted to stay all day today. We overslept this morning, this was with S getting 12 hours of sleep and I had to wake her up. I threw together a lunch in 2 minutes and we went off to school. We left late, I was sure the door to the car line would be closed. Fortunately, it was open and so she started her day like everyone else. I wonder what the teacher thought about her staying all day, especially after my email. I leave in a few to go pick her up, I hope it went well. She is such a brave little soul, I hope she had a good day. Yesterday was the teacher assistant's birthday. I think they celebrated it after she left, so she feels like she missed out. I think that had something to do with wanting to stay all day today.

Things Are Deteriorating

We are having some major issues around here and school is the cause. The teacher was supposed to call but promised to call tonight. S is being punished at school for her anxiety induced behaviors. It is only causing more stress and she is getting close to not being able to function without constant worry. I can only hope that I can explain it to them without being threatening or condescending. It is going to be tough for me to guard every word so it doesn't come out the wrong way. She is really good about not interrupting or taking the conversation in a different direction. I felt like maybe I couldn't ask for everything to be special and different than the rest of the kids, then I thought to myself, "Hey! Wait a minute! This is why I chose private school over public and they are getting a huge sum of money to do ecactly what they promised me." I will need to remind them of that.

Our exercise routine has been inconsistent and it is really messing things up. she just can't get serious about her vision exercises and I'm about to quit. I am paying so much money and I don't see any difference. I need to get her started on iLs and see where that gets us first. Many of the vision exercises can be incorporated into that routine. She has been so tired since the day before Halloween and eating candy, it is all taking it's toll. I haven't heard "I don't love you." in a long, long time. It comes during exercise time when I am making her do something and stop fooling around. It has been horrible to hear her talking while playing alone and talking about being punnished. I sure hope the teacher listens and understands.

On another bad note, her ears are building up wax again and the one ear is itching her horribly. She keeps asking "What?", so it must be worse than it looks with my otoscope.

Now to report something great. She was so excited about Halloween this year. She was totally into it and had so much fun. The most precious thing was when I put her Tinkerbelle costume on and she grabbed my hand because she thought she could actually fly. Her dad, big sis and sis' boyfriend all took turns running her from house to house while holding her horizontally so it was like she was flying. She had so much fun and she actually ate some of her candy.

I guess I should expect some setbacks, but I was riding this great wave and let my guard down a bit. consequently, it threw me.

School and Developmental Optometrist

Although I picked her up from school in a good mood, she said they did not do anything different with the babies. She didn't seem as upset about them, but then again we didn't have time to talk in depth about it. She hates to tell me anything about school on the 30 minute ride home. I usually only get anything out of her during her exercises, which we didn't do because we had our vision therapy appt. The optometrist decided to re-test her reflexes and siad that about 3 of them remain only slightly. I don't know what to believe. Since reflexes are not what he specializes in, I am not giving it too much weight. Given her level of trust and playfulness combined, I'm not sure how accurate the tes the same could ever be. He kept repeating the testing of the same reflex, getting a little different reaction every time. Wouldn't her response be conditioned? I would think the first response would be the most accurate, although he was told that repeating was most accurate. I will have to talk to Bette on this one. She has the final say call since reflexes IS her specialty. For example the moro- I tested her one way and Bette tested her another way. Both were negative. The op tested her 2 different ways and only got a slight response on one and that was after repeating it several times. I just hate that there is a difference of opinion, I guess there always will be between 2 different disciplines. Really though, the results are what matters, and my sweet girl is doing great.

Update

I am so proud of how strong my little girl is. We had a long talk about the babies crying yesterday. This was the first time we actually had a long conversation. I suggested some possible solutions to the problem and told her I would ask the school if we could come up with one. She asked to go a full day today! She seemed to think one of my solutions was going to happen, and I explained that we hadn't discussed it yet, but she could tell her teacher if anything ever bothered her. She felt empowered by a possible solution, and trudged forward. I hope it ends up a good day.

I got an email from the teacher and she confirmed that the babies crying was a problem and that they are working on a possible solution. S also told me last night that it bothered at least one other girl. Her teacher will call me soon to discuss it and some other things.

On the NR front, it is getting harder and harder to stay motivated. You'd think it would be the other way around because we can see the finish line. The good news is that we are working on the fetals and have worked up to 30 on 3 of them. We only have one more to add. Essentially we done if we don't have any reaction to the last fetal. I think we are going to make our goal of being finished with all therapies by the time we finish the school year. I hope to start iLs soon, I haven't even taken it all out yet and looked everything over. Halloween is on Monday and it will only get busier from there. This is the first year that S is really into Halloweeen. she knows what is going on and is looking forward to it. We got her report card from school the other day and she is doing great. Everything was age appropriate. This is truely a miracle, especially since she just turned 5 in June. There is really no doubt that NR was responsible. I am so happy that I kept this journal because it is a fabulous testimony to the power of NR. I started this blog to prove or disprove the effectiveness of NR. I started out as such a sceptic and ended a believer. The best place to start is to read through all of the reflex sites. Anyone can determine if their child is a candidate for NR. Once it is determined, there is no other way to resolve it without NR. Unfortunately, many have tried and continue to be in denial.

School

Never underestimate the memory of a child. Traumatic events are burned into our memories no matter what age we are. Since S attends a small private school, they provide childcare for all of the teachers children. One teacher had a baby at the beginning of the school year and apparently she just came back to school. S had been going full days at school as much as half days. Last week, I think she went 4 full days and one half day. She did a full day Monday and then has been adamant about going only half days. I put two and two together and asked her some probing questions. I guessed it correctly, she doesn't want to stay because of the crying baby. The caretaker feeds the babies in the cafeteria the same time that S is in there. The baby room is also right next door to her classroom. I thought that would be a problem in the beginning, but it has seemed to be okay. I think there are enough distractions to keep her mind off of it. Crying has always been a huge trauma trigger for her and still is. My 14 year old remembers S saying that the babies were spanked when they cried. I don't remember her ever saying that, but her reaction matches that statement. There was also an incident that S told me about where she was stressed out and the teacher didn't recognize it. Since things have been going so well, I'm sure everything I've told her at the beginning of the year has been forgotten. I have an email into her to have a meeting. I hope I can say things the right way, it's such shaky territory. Hopefully they know her well enough to see what I am saying.

We have conquered the potty!!! It's been 10 days now and we're not looking back. She even was able to do it while we were away from home. She even graduated to a kid toothbrush the other day. We had been using a Wisp travel toothbrush because it was small enough for her. Now we just need to get rid of the bottle!

2 new reflex sites

http://www.itsacademictutoring.com/Primitive%20Reflexes.htm

http://www.icdl.com/graduate/documents/Chapter20.pdf

The Past Year

I've been trying to think of all of the things that have changed since doing NR full time. It's coming up on a year, and I'd like to see how far we've come. I remember being slightly worried about numbers, S had such a hard time recognizing numbers. If my memory serves me correctly, she couldn't consistently count to ten at 4 years old and didn't recognize one from another. Now she can count to 100 and beyond with accuracy. She can recognize and write her numbers. Several weeks ago, someone had grapes on a plate. She counted them from a distance and said the quantity. He decided to quiz her by adding grapes and taking them away. Each time, she stated the new quantity. I watched in amazement, having no idea she could add and subtract in her head. Her sentence structure and vocabulary is amazing. I remember last year when she started pre-school, she couldn't answer a question like, "What is your favorite food?" She could answer direct questions like "What is this object?", but would give a nonsensical answer to a question about what was just read to her in a book. Her ability to perform different physical activities has improved dramatically. She can do the "Miss Mary Mack" type hand clapping with amazing speed now. She is less anxious than she used to be. Her school experience is so different than last year. When I think that she was at least a full year behind her peers, it's hard to believe she has caught up and probably surpassed them. I am so proud of her. She is so eager to please and is so helpful. She is interested in what I do and the world around her. I have so much hope for her future.

Empathy

I forgot to mention that it is a regular occurence to have S quickly respond, "Are you okay?" when she sees someone get hurt or someone says OW! I don't think a day goes by now that I don't hear "I love you." many times a day. It's just so wonderful that I forget about the years that I never heard it. I get random hugs and kisses now. I don't care to ever look back, only to appreciate what i have now. More importantly is to recognize what SHE has now. Her anxiety has lessened significantly. She is more able to show the world who she really is. That makes the world pretty darn lucky.

List of Websites

I have compiled a list of the best websites about retained primitive reflexes. There are a few other websites in there that have great info or activities. NR identifies retained primitive refexes. There is really only one way to integrate these relfexes. If you think your child can live with these reflexes, read the information in these links and I think you'll change your mind. Reflexes are easy to test for, and if your child has retained reflexes, then you know what you need to do. I may have been told this before, but it took finding it on my own to really figure out this was at the heart of all of our challenges. Primitive relfexes defined my daughter. My daughter is the textbook before and after story. Everything came together for her as her relfexes were integrated. It may not be the answer for everyone, but if your child has retained primitive relexes, they aren't going to go away on their own. OT teaches good compensation skills, but the problem is still there. I have seen so many people who avoid NR because it's actually easier to drag their kid to 5 different therapies than be disciplined enough to do this every day. I would have probably chosen that option had I had it available. We actually did do OT, but I was frustrated that no one ever cared to find out what was the root of the problem. I need to know why we do anything that we do. I need to know how it works. I didn't really work with anyone who cared to find out. Our OT dismissed NR and some of the primitive reflexes. She was good, and nice, but I needed more than a band aid. Only our vision therapist and our NR practitioner got the big picture. I hear NR mentioned on the 2 sensory groups I'm on and they are dismissed. I am really happy to see so many doing NR and attachment therapy. I think our time spent doing NR really helped our attachment as well.


http://www.drsamberne.com/articles/Berne_essay.pdf (primitive reflexes)


http://www.rhythmicmovement.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=11&Itemid=18 (importance and roles of primitive reflexes)

http://www.visiontherapyathome.com/category_s/86.htm (primitive reflexes)

http://playathomemom3.blogspot.com/search/label/Sensory%20Activities (for great sensory ideas)

http://www.playcreateexplore.com/2011/01/homemade-geoboard.html (fun sensory and play activities)

http://www.brainhighways.com/ (videos about effects of problems in different parts of the brain)

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/04/10/the-child-you-didn-t-dream-of.html (hyperlexia)

http://www.inpp.org.uk/intervention-adults-children/more-information/reflexes/

http://www.ky3.com/news/contactky3/ky3-lack-of-tummy-time-blamed-for-developmental-delays-02232011,0,3781056.story

Attachment

I am so thrilled with the direction our attachment is going. S needs to be close to me to go to sleep, usually with my arm under her neck. She is sleeping a longer stretch at night without waking up. Now, she just asks me to go down on the bed with her when she wakes up. She talks about being away from me when she is at school and repeats what I have said to her about it being okay to be away from eachother and that we always come back to eachother. We had a tentatively scheduled phone consult with the attachment therapist more than a week ago that I canceled. I have been thinking that I should schedule one, but I honestly can't think of anything that we need to talk about.

Yesterday, we went to the park to play. There were only older kids there, but age doesn't stop S from going right up to them and ask them to play. Usually she just joins in without asking. Most of the time she is ignored or they try to lose her. Girls can be so nasty. I ended up reprimanding 2 kids that were there. Of course there were no parents around, which is probably the reason the kids were such brats. S tried to climb up the slide instead of doing it the right way. I made her go up the slide. Then an older girl told her not to slide down because she wanted to climb up. I told her to get down and go around, that s was doing it the right way and she had no right to tell her not to slide down. The girl just looked at me, dumbfounded. Apparently no one had ever told her not to do something. Then S wanted to sit on a bench with 2 girls. They said no and I told S to come back. There wasn't enough room anyway, and they didn't need to include her. Later, when one of the friends left, S saw her opporunity and ran to sit down. The little girl gently took her hand and shoved her off. The reason? She was getting off the bench and she didn't feel like walking around. So she moved my kid!!!!! I yelled, "Hey, why did you push her." She ignored me so I persisited. I asked her how old she was and she started to give me an excuse for what she did. I interupted her and made me tell her how old she was. she said she was 8. I told her she should be a good example to my 5 year old and just said excuse me instead. She never apologized. When S went near her I said, "Stay away from her, she pushes little kids!" Then I heard this slightly older boy recounting the whole episode.Why is it so hard to do the right thing? I stuggled with this with my older kids. I teach them to be good people and do the right thing and then they are surrounded by people who never consider anyone but themselves? Even when you are around what you think parents with the same mindset, their kids end up being brats too? My older kids are nice people who are trustworthy and a friend anyone would love to have, so I guess I need to hold onto that. There are a lot of tough years in between though. I thought since S was more bold than they were, she wouldn't have a problem. She is so sweet though, I can see her taken advantage of. She is happy go lucky, and for that I am so grateful. Maybe she'll go through life never noticing what I do. What a blessing that would be.

Certification

As soon as I turn in my quiz, I will be a certified Integrated Learning System provider. I don't know if I will provide to anyone else but my own family, but it will still be worth it. I would love to provide for so many others in our community, but I'm not sure how I would do it without having a building to operate from needing to buy many systems. It is an amazing system and I think it will rapidly gain in popularity. Someone finally combined all of the body systems that work together and benefit from being stimulated at the same time. I can't wait to get started. Disney was a complete washout, but my family braved the steady, pouring rain. S enjoyed it, but didn't want to go on any new rides. I'm really happy she liked it, and I'm looking forward to going wioth her in 2 more weeks. Last night, I read her stories before bed. She went into a horribly sad mood and said alll sorts of horrible things. I think it may have been triggered by the stories, but I don't know for sure. I need to be very careful what I read. I thought they were cute little kitten stories, and they were, but one was about a kitten that was lost and no one could understand her. She was asking everyone where her home was, but they only heard a meow. A little girl picked her up and brought her to her house to live. After the whole emotional fiasco ended, I thought about it and this is exactly how she must have felt leaving her caregiver and no one understood what her cries meant. We were the little girl who gave her a home. How devastating it is to think she could have related that to her own experience. I'm sure this is just one of many things she will go through and I have to remain strong for her.

Changes

Well, there were no repercussions for the fetals and I spoke with Bette about them. She said we could move on to the last 4 patterns. S stayed a full day yesterday and the day before at school. This was after missing Monday because of car trouble. They have this friday off from school and we will go to Orlando this weekend. I am excited to be going to the ILS seminar to be trained as a certified provider. The rest of the family will be enjoying Disney while I am learning. Today after coming home from school, S gave me a huge hug and said, "I love you!!!!" I think we have finally arrived! I am beyond thrilled at all of the changes we are seeing over the past several months. The first thing I am going to do is go to 'no mail' on my groups. It will be a little while before I leave them completely, but I am happy to see the end. I really believe in NR and it has given my daughter what she deserves to have-a fair chance at life.

We risked something big yesterday. I had asked about doing the fetals we were still having some issues with because they were eliminated at our last eval. We decided they should be added back in until they were no longer an issue. Unlike some of the other exercises, the reps only go to 30 as opposed to 60. The one day that she wanted to do more and more, I'm sure we went over 30. Anyway, we are doing them in the proper sequence, one fetal at a time until we can be done with it. This way, we know which is causing any problems. So yesterday, because I think we made it up to 30 before, went ahead and risked doing 30 fetal cross all at once. We will do it for a few more days to see if there is any problem, and then slowly move up with the fetal measure. I know we never did 30 of the fetal measure, so we will start out slow and only add one or two a day. Then we can go through the rest of them and be done!

I took the plunge and I am going next week to be a certified ILS provider. I am hoping this is as good as it says it is, and I can provide it to others with confidence. I'm excited about it, I hope it works out. There is also the possibility that I can get a small income from it too. We'll see, let's just get trained first.

Attachment

Have I mentioned how great our attachment is going? Although I'm losing sleep over it, I am so happy how it's going. I have moved a twin sized mattress next to my bed and lie down with her until she goes to sleep. I was on a toddler mattress with her, but only half of me fit on there, so I broke down and put the twin size there. Someday she will end up in her own bed. The other night, she put her arm around me and put my arm around her. This is from a child who hated to be touched and snuggled. It took about a year and a half if I remember correctly to allow herself to be even sitting on an adult bed. She would panic just when we tried to sit her on our bed. She allowed herself in a bed one time when we went to a hotel. She was afraid to stay in the portable crib, so she decided she had to be with me to be out of there. I get many hugs and kisses each day, something I could only dream of for years. My concerns for emotional expressive language have almost disappeared. We are going to go to Disneyworld in a couple of weeks. I think this will tell us how far we have actually come. Although she enjoys some of it, she does not want to go back. We will be there with another girl who was adopted the same time as she was from the same place. Hopefully this will help her enjoy it more. We plan to go back in November with another friend. Who would have imagined that we would have to convince her that going to Disney was a good thing. She even tried ice cream the last time we were there. School is still going well, she stayed a full day today and plans to tomorrow also. I have been consulting with the attachment therapist every three weeks on average. Our next appt is in a week and I think I need to extend it because we have no new or pressing issues. How great is that?

Looking Back

I'm starting to relax a little about the future. Everything was so uncertain for so long. Although I always expected things to be resolved, there were many times that I was discouraged and thinking everything would NOT be okay someday. I am grateful that I allowed myself to enjoy her while worrying about her. I am amazed at how caught up I got in doing our NR routine everyday that I didn't notice how many things changed. I think much of it had to do with it being summer and the lack of any structure. Today I added ....and beyond to the blog title because there is actually going to be a beyond! I never expected this emotional component, this is going to be tough too. I'll take it though and not complain. S is still asking each and every day if she has an appointment. She also said she liked the cranial sacral and wanted to go back(when I described the person to her, she doesn't know CS by name). So I'm thrilled there is actually an appt that she doesn't mind going to.

Adapting to our new routine

As always, it takes a while for S to get used to the new routine. She doesn't like change, so it throws her off. It is so much faster now with so few things to do. Looking back, all the intense one on one time was the key to securing our attachment. Even though part of the time was spend coaxing and not so much fun, it still played a big part. Even though for most kids, it is boring to count reps to 60, that's how she wanted it. Sometime we would count backward. The added benefit to this was that now at 5 years old, she can pretty proficiently count to 60 and beyond. Most of our daily routine is our vision therapy, which we try to do in conjunction with our NR. S stayed another full day at school on Friday and she did great. The teacher said everything went fine last Friday, no problems whatsoever. Then yesterday she admitted that last week she was a little scared at music but was okay this week. I may be going overboard, but why didn't they tell me that last week? I really need to know when something scares her so we can talk about it. Maybe they think I will question their competence? We need to handle things together, I thought they agreed to work as a team. I am happy with the school and S is happy. She doesn't wake up begging to go to school, so I wonder what is going on in her mind. She is getting so much better at communication. Yesterday she told her daddy that he hurt her feelings and she started to cry a little. I think he scared her because she doesn't like when he makes car noises even though they were playing cars. It was late and maybe she was just tired. At our re-eval, Bette mentioned that auditory processing was one of our concerns. I actually think that is resolving without more intervention. The ENT asked if we wanted to have her tested and I told him we would wait. She was so traumatized from her last ENT visit, she asks where we are going every day when I pick her up from school. I have to reassure her that there are NO appointments. I want to take her back for cranial sacral, but I think she needs a break.

I Don't Know Where To Start!

So much has changed in the past 9 days. We backed off of the fetals and things calmed down again. Daddy went with her to Chinese class while big sis went with me. This proved big sis was the trigger. Although she wasn't attnetive in class, she wasn't disruptive either. Then came re-eval day on Monday. I knew things were good, but I wasn't really prepared for what I was about to hear. We are done with tummy crawling!!!! Yay! I am so happy about that. The next big news is that we are almost done. We just have some crawling and fetals and then we should be finished by the next re-eval. We are going to do a little more BIT and probably some cranial sacral. My goal is to be finished with ALL therapies by the end of this school year. We may need some on going attachment/counceling, but if that's all we have, I won't complain. I can't believe the end is in sight, it has been a long time coming. Hard work pays off.


Something extraordinary happened the evening of our re-eval. We were going to visit her big sister at school for her birthday. We passed a stray kitty that the neighborhood has been feeding. She piped up saying, "I wish I had a kitty!" The first thing that makes this so unique is that she never said she wished for anything. Our old almost 20 year old kitty died within 8 months of S coming home. She did like him, but hasn't really shown any interest in animals even though we have 2 dogs. I have seen her occasionally feeling their fur.
The other strange thing is that for the past 2 days she has been calling me mamma. It has been mommy or mom for the longest time. Maybe the new fetal pattern? I don't know, I just know it's different.
I'm still getting used to the good news that we're almost done. It's just too good to be true.

More Negativity

These past few days have been disastrous. Again, I didn't know what to attribute it to until I realized the other day she wanted to do more of the fetals. It brought back all of the negative emotions and regressive behavior. I just hope she is over it before she goes back to school tomorrow. Things are going so well, I hope she can pull it together for tomorrow. We had no school today, this also threw her off, especially since she stayed homw sick on Friday too. She also started Chinese class on Sunday. It started off well, but then rapidly disintegrated. I thought that maybe the language is a trigger for her, but then remembered that she is great when we go to China. I think the trigger is her big sister who is in the same class. She can bring out things in her that no one else can. I think big sis is the only one who has made her cry actual sad tears. She is closest to her, so she also acts up for her. Dad offered to be with her next week and big sis will go to my class with me. We'll see how that goes. I limited fetals today, so hopefully we'll be back to normal tomorrow.

Unexpected Fallout

Well, I thought I was finished for today, but apparently not. I am actually writing this to document it for myself so I can report it in detail to the AT. She ran and sat with her back to my front as I was sitting on the floor with my legs outstretched in a V shape. She proceeded to push back hard against me to knock me over. I over reacted and picked her up and moved her away from me and asked her what she was thinking. This caused her to over react and think she was ALL bad. She quickly came right back to me and hugged me tight feeling absolutely horrible. I comforted her and asked her what she needed to do. she said she was sorry and I asked her to do it over again the right way. She refused, saying all kinds of horrible things about herself. Then we lay next to one another and she told me the bad things were back, referring to the bad feelings. I empathized with her and told her she could tell the bad feeling to go away. She said she wanted them. I proceeded to tell her it was okay if she wanted to have them there, that it was important to let them in there so she could get past it. I told her sometimes she had to feel the bad to feel love again. She said she didn't want to feel love. I told her that I had love waiting for her whenever she was ready to let it in. She said a bunch of things in this long encounter like not loving me and I just kept reassuring her that my love for her was always full and that I would be there to love her just as soon as she was ready. She said she wanted to feel nothing at all. I was devastated with that one, but I kept up with the positive. She can outlast me in just about everything, but I didn't back down. She eventually said she was ready for my love and I told her to put her heart next to mine and I would fill it up with love. Then it was over with just like that. Yesterday was the 4 year mark of her being with us and we watched the video. I told her what she was about to watch and made sure she wanted to watch it, she said yes. She said, "This is where I get a new mommy?" This is from the book I made her explaining that she had a different mommy when she was born. Maybe this was the emotion of that coming out today. If there is one thing I would like people to know about adoption is that you can't avoid the loss and the price paid for the ultimate gain. It is my hope that the pain will all be in the past one day and we can look ahead to a life of happiness.

Yesterday was a sick day, no NR. She did however, need to go with her sister to her vision therapy appt. She was really feeling fine by the time we went to the 6pm appt. She sat and played and entertained herself for an hour while in the same crowded room with her sister, me and the doctor. I accuse my daughter of not being able to notice the world around her and of course, I can be accused of the same thing in this situation. I guess I was just so relieved that she was good, that I failed to notice just how good she was. The doctor luckily did notice and told her she could choose a prize from the treasure box for being so well behaved. I think this is really becoming a permanent thing. I had a conference at school and the teacher had only good things to say. She SITS and dones her work! This is truely a miracle. They have no issues whatsoever. I think this is because it is a calm atmosphere and also because she really is healing. They also said she sits for storytime. We are going to try to transition her to a longer day in a week or two. I want to go slowly with this so she doesn't have a bad experience. I will start by having lunch with her. I really hope it works and that we can be going to full days by the start of the next calendar year. Then I can actually go home after I drop her off at school and get something done. I am still dropping her off and staying nearby. That's all for today, I need to catch up on some emails.

Bubbles

I was just reading back on some old posts and I wanted to write more about the bubbles. She sees them every time she yawns. The interesting thing is that every time, without fail, she starts to yawn during the fetal cross. She never yawns any other time. I think this is a little more than a coincidence since it has been going on for months now.

Cranial Sacral

I totally forgot to wrote about the cranial sacral therapy session we went to last week. It lasted an hour and it was with a massage therapist. She works with a lot of kids and seemed to be really perceptive. S was really good with her and tolerated the session well. The next couple of days were pretty emotional. This could be partly due to the sleep issue, some to the therapy. the therapist said she could feel so much tension in her little body. She could tell me so much about her without me giving her any info. We are planning to go back. It looks like just when we are getting the physical issues resolved, the emotional ones are coming forth. I can honestly say I didn't see it coming. I can also say that because of that, I'm not really ready for it either. I have a conference with the teacher today at school, so I get to find out how it's really going...I hope. They report that everything is great.

Shocked

Today, while I was in the laundry room, I heard S start to raise her voice in her frustrated tone and I came out to see what had happened and who set her off. I am so grateful that I was able to remember what was said a few minutes earlier that neded up to be the trigger. My husband said she just started saying she didn't want her new Squinky toys, her new room, and she didn't like mommy, daddy or herself. What started all of this was because I asked her if she wanted to get rid of a toy. I explained that we get rid of toys she doesn't play with to make room for any new ones she got. She has gotten upset in the past when I asked her if she could give a few of her old toys or books to her baby cousin. So apparently this is what set her off and the poor thing would rather give up everything she loves now to aviod the pain in the future. I started watching videos of when she was younger and she did NOT want to watch them. Then I saw some of the baby toys that I am certain she would remember and ask where they were. So I am going to be sure to not show her any of those videos until I know she can handle it.

I saw a mother on a TV show last night and she had an autistic son. He had a photographic memory and he was able to give her directions to someone's house he had been to one time when he was 2 years old. I have a feeling her memory is very much like that from the things she has told me.

I was just thinking of our upcoming re-evaluation and my number one concern for the past several times has been impulse control. I just realized that it is not the top concern anymore. Although if you were to ask me if there have been any huge day to day changes, I would say no. They have been creeping up so slowly but having a cumulative effect. The changes since May have been profound. I am so excited about this. I tested her for another reflex this morning and she is better! I'm not even sure what it is called, but if you sit them on the floor and slowly tip their body to the side, they are supposed to keep their head straight while the body tips. She always kept her head directly in line with her body and now she keeps it straight!!! Wahoo!!! Even though I don't see huge leaps from day to day, they are happening inside her body. It seems like over the summer, things have been coming together at an accelerated rate. I hope I can report that the end is in sight after this next eval. When I read about the families who were on the 4-6 year plan, I want to scream. I even discussed with Bette "getting good enough." I hate to stop before we are fully healed, and I'm not planning on it, but if we are going another 4 years, I'm not sure if we can make it. We'll see when we get there, I need to focus on today. We took two days off in a row, but when we got back today, she acted like we never stopped. This was another first, maybe it means more progress.

Saturday-Has it really been a week?

I find it hard to believe that it has already been a week since I last updated. Things have been going well. I took her to her first cranial sacral appt. She did great for the entire hour. She has been sleep deprived, so that factors in her mood. She seemed to be in a worse mood overall, maybe a little easier to set off for at least 2 days following the session. I think we'll go back on a friday from now on so she can go through anything she needs to on the weekend. If she goes through it on a weekday, that would just compound her stresss levels. I'm trying to set up a conference with the teacher to see how things are going. We had a little bit of the "I don't love you/don't need a mommy" yesterday, but it was quickly over. I am getting so much positive lately, it's really wonderful. I don't know what is causing all of this good stuff to happen, but I am not changing a thing we are doing so it continues. It seems I'm always saying that we are making so much progress, but we really are. Like I said in a previous post, this process is broken down into hundres of thousands of steps, that's why it seems like we are always gaining so much ground. I decided we will do a little more BIT, because it can't hurt. A couple of days ago, during NR, she blurted out a single sentence that I didn't connect with anything at the moment. Then I realized that it had something to do with what she has been revealing to me. It's amazing what is coming out.

Remember the Good

Today I was realizing that with each new day I just get used to the new normal around my house. Sometime in the recent past, my daughter has transformed into a child who tells me she loves me several times a day. I get hugs and kisses. This is what every mother comes to expect, but mine has been a long time coming. I have been so happy about it that I forget sometime that we have just arrived at this new place. She has been telling me that she misses me and doesn't want to be away from me. To someone who has never been onthe road to attachment, this concept seems so foreign. I thought that all this should come naturally before I adopted. I just didn't know what it could be like. I can't tell you the risk she is taking telling me she misses me and doesn't want to be away from me. I started to tell her it was okay to miss me and she quickly said, "I want to be away from you!" I took a bigger risk and challenged her. I told her that she just said the opposite and tried to reason with her. She actually listened AND understood. She then said, "I don't want to be away from you." Progress. How hard it must be to be her and not understand. I think she really thinks that each time we are separated that we might never see eachother again. Today, she actually understood about being away and returning and said, "Like when daddy goes to work." YES!!!! the more she gets, hopefully the more comfortable and secure she will feel. So today my big revelation was that thing just might be okay after all one day. We are making so much progress it seems like we should have been there years ago already. It's not through any lack of effort on her part or mine, that's a fact. I never thought such simple living and functioning could be broken down into literally hundreds of thousands of little steps. Someday we'll be free of the yahoo support groups, the doctor and other practitioners/therapists, etc. Someday we'll be free to expand our world and do what we want, not just what we are able to tolerate. Someday she'll squeal with excitement at the thought of Disneyworld. She has shown me that even if that day never comes, there is plenty of life to be enjoyed. Today is a day to realize that we need to be grateful for what we have and don't worry about what we don't. We never know what tomorrow will bring, so we'd better make the most of today.

In a Mood

She was in a mood yesterday. She was so hard to deal with, but each episode was short lived. I think some of it was lack of sleep. She is great when she is not being challenged. I tried to skip creeping and crawling and go on to the next thing. She has established a little routine and doesn't want to get out of it. Sometimes when she gets "stuck" not wanting to do a certain pattern, I give her a choice of what comes next. That tactic usually works. We just stop for lots of hugs as much as needed. I want to take a day off today, but I don't think I'm going to.

Week Two

We made it through week two of school. The teacher said things are going great. She comes home with many papers done, I don't know how she does it. Could it be that she has made so much progress over the summer that she can sit and do seatwork? I will be so happy if this is true. Just when I am totally bogged down with all of this, there is light at the end of the tunnel. I can't even begin to hope that this is how it will continue to be. Maybe it's that there are only 7 kids in the class and 2 teachers? Maybe the kids are all calm and well behaved? I can't help but think they could be like the other school and tell me everything is great while they do their own thing with her. I know we have made progress, but has it been enough to accomplish this? I am NOT a pessimist, just a realist. Don't you think the teachers are wondering what we were talking about when they don't see it? Do they think we are crazy and overreactive? What about the letters for the OT and AT? I had them write separate letters to back us up so they wouldn't have to take our word for it. What must they be thinking? I will ask for a conference in a week or so. I would say if it continues for a month, they we can consider it the new normal. I AM holding my breath on this one. Oh, how I want it to be okay for her. She really deserves as much. At least the teachers will see what she can do when all of the conditions are right. If they fall in love with the amazing person she is, they will be able to understand her a bit more and be more willing to do what it takes to get that sweet little girl back to where she was. We go back for our re-eval in about 3 weeks. Maybe we will see the end near? I don't know how much longer I can creep and crawl with her. If we can take that component out, I think it will be a lot easier. Once she is in school full time, I don't see how we can spend an hour or 2 a night on NR. As it is, I have totally dropped the ball on big sis and her vision therapy. He wants to see her once a week now, and it's 45 minutes away! Add S's vision therapy ontop of that, and consider that I do this by myself. My husband is finally home after being gone since school started. At least he helps with the driving which is huge considering how much time I spend in the car. Enough whining for one post, I should be rejoicing that things are going well. I am exhausted, TGIF!!!

Wednesday

Our NR program is wearing me out. Thank God she only goes a half a day, I spend at least 2 hours getting her to do her NR. She is processing a lot of emotions during this time, so I really need to give her the time. I think she is having a memory of her early life. Another disturbing one which may explain a lot of her anxiety. The picture of her early life is getting worse and worse, I don't think it was very good. I am really hoping that these are just a couple of events that had a lasting impact instead of an ongoing situation. I think I am going to need more help to process this than she will. So far, nothing bad has come out about her nanny. For that I am grateful, because I think she is going to want to have a relationship with her one day. We just found out our cranial sacral therapist isn't available for several months. Insurance covers the CS person, but not the massage therapist that he recommended using until he could see her. It is taking all I have to keep up with all of this.

This Week

This week has been crazy to put it mildly. I'm not sure what to say about school, I just don't know yet. I hope it works out, but I still have my doubts. I was pleased to hear they did an activity that involved sensory activities. The had to pull letters out of sand to glue to their art paper. Each day she said she didn't want to go back, but was okay in the morning. We did the car loop one day and then she didn't want to do it again. If we don't do the car loop, then she will be late each day. They don't let anyone in through the front door until they close the car loop door. I don't think it's good for her to be late every day. I'm going to ask if she can go in early before they open the car loop making her the first one there. We did our NR everyday but Friday. We were exhausted by Friday and both needed a day off. Unfortunately we had to take yesterday off also because we moved her two sisters into their apartment at college. It's almost 2pm and we haven't started yet. I'm trying to catch up after being gone most of the week. This is going to be harder than I thought until we get into a new routine.

First Day of School

I'll try to write more tomorrow but the first day did not go as expected. I think all in all it was okay, but I am not optimistic about the future. It was the first time in her life that she said she didn't want to go back somewhere. I am so sad about all of this. It seems as though the school may not but true to their word, but I don't want to judge too quickly. More tomorrow.

Open House

Open house was tonight and it went well. As we were explaining the list of S's issues that we had to squeeze into 30 minutes, the teacher and aide looked a little overwhelmed. There are only 7 children in the class with a teacher and an aide. After our meeting, S came in and met her teachers. She greeted each with a gentle hug, and they seemed thrilled. She answered their questions and was very charming and sweet. I think all of their fears disappeared after meeting her. I'm really happy they got a good first impression. the best news I heard all night was when I asked if she were the only special needs child in the classroom and they said there was not one child in the entire school that wasn't special needs. Hallelujiah! I can only hope that she is the best behaved in the class and not the worst. My biggest worry was that the fumes from the paint and new materials was so strong that it gave me a headache. I hope it doesn't last long and that they air it out. Tomorrow is the first day and I am debating sending her at 9 when the reat of the kids arrive or start her at 9:45 when we planned. A lot of prayer is needed right now.

Soooooooooooo MAD

We were just making muffins together and she told me something the pre-school teacher said to her. It came out because she had some of the batter on her hands and I told her to try to let it stay on a little while longer so she could learn to live with it for a while. This expression must have brought up the memory because she said that Mrs. XXXX told her to "live with it" when she had something on her hands. That constitutes child abuse when you know you have a child with sensory issues and tell them to just deal with it. I wonder how she would react if as an adult I told her to 'live with it". I would probably be arrested for harassment. Why aren't our children protected? How can someone purposely do that to a child? She really thought it was something she could change just by doing it. Yes, she could adapt slowly, that's the whole concept with OT. A gradual introduction of the offending item and a gradual adaptation. I can't believe I subjected her to that. They did a good job of hiding it from me. She wanted to go back each day, so I thought things were fine. I should have realized that kids go back to abusive situation because they don't know any better. After surviving neglect and abuse her first year of life, it just brought her back to the same environment. Maybe she thinks this is what to expect with all adults in charge of children. It makes me want to isolate her from everyone. She is more verbal now and so I think we are safe. She is getting much better with her emotional vocabulary. I just feel sick after hearing what I just did from her.

Tomorrow is the first day of school(I think)

Today is open house. We still don't know if school will start tomorrow because the building might not be ready. The school changed locations and they are under construction. We have 30 minutes to meet with the teacher before open house. I hope that is enough. How do you condense her life into 30 minutes? How do you prepare her without sounding like you are telling her what to do? From my past experience with teachers, they are all on the defensive. Her teacher sounded young, which to me is a good thing because she can't claim to know it all. Her pre-school teacher thought she had seen it all and that there was nothing else to learn. They are so flexible, so if they do what they say they will, it should all work out.Isn't that why you go to a private school? I hope and pray that this will work. She deserves a chance, just like any child. I wanted to write this on S's fact sheet to the teacher, but can't find a diplomatic way to write it. S is not a case study, she's not a child with a label, she's not an experiment. She has parents who are doing everything possible for her. Please treat her as an individual, unique child that she is. A sweet, smart, loving child. MY child, who I love more than I ever thought possible.

I have no idea what is going on, we didn't get half of the program done today. I am so frustrated, I don't know what to do. Something came out today that tied into something she has said the past two days in a row. It is very disturbing what I can think up with what she told me. I have no idea what is memory and what is just something random that she says. I thought the two days prior were random, but they fit in with what she said today. I don't expect I would ever be able to know for sure. I need to treat all of her delay tactics as emotional barriers instead of just trying to put off doing her exercises. We spent hours trying to accomplish it, but didn't get it done in the end. We didn't do any fetals, never even got to them, so we'll see if it makes a difference for tomorrow.

Rough Few Days

My guess is that worrying about school is the culprit. Her big sister started school on Wednesday, and she starts next week. We have been getting the same type behavior like when we start new fetals. I just don't know what to do or what to make of it, but I was hoping that things would calm down before school started. Maybe after open house she will be a little better. The unknown is scary to everyone. I'm nervous for her. We are being positive and upbeat and are using her sister's first day of school experiences to ease her fears. She cannot express her fears, she says she isn't nervous about anything. Then sometime she'll say she doesn't want to go to school. I am pretty sure it has to do with the whole potty issue. That is her biggest fear right now. Hopefully she will overcome this after a few days or even weeks. I want her to be able to stay at school for more than a couple of hours. Her teacher called today to let us know that open house had changed. She sounded really nice, I hope it works out. The right person can make all the difference for her future. I am not optimistic though, it's just too hard for people to understand. Because of her mood, NR has been difficult and time consuming.

We have another phone consult with the AT on Monday. I realized where some of her behavior is coming from. She is so afraid of being wrong or making a mistake, she will be disruptive to hide the fact she can't do something. There has never been any indication of this before. It is a common characteristic of kids with early trauma or neglect. They appear to have a perfectionist personality but it is driven by needing to be accepted. I hope to get a better explanation from the AT and what to do about it. I guess this discovery comes at a good time so I can explain it to the school. I can just see their reaction, spoiled kid! I hope they are willing to modify their correction techniques for her. I still think some of this is because of her pre-school teacher. Anyway, it doensn't matter who I can place the blame with, I just need to arrive at a solution.

The past couple of days have been a little rough, I'm not sure why. We started a little later in the day, that is usually an issue. She said she was sad today and wanted to be sad. I was patient and tried to talk her through it. I told her sometimes it's good to be sad to be able to get over what is making us sad. We have to get through the sad so we can be happy again. I told her if we talked about what was making her sad, maybe I could do something about it and make her happy again. I was shocked when she opened up about her pre-school teacher and the boy who misbehaved. She gets very upset when she sees someone else get punished. She also gets very sad when someone corrects her, she shuts herself right down. She takes it all personally. I don't know what this teacher said to her, but from what I learned from the teacher herself, it wasn't good. She had the victim share equal blame with the perpetrator. I think this contributed to her self esteem issues. I keep hearing her teachers words over and over again, "I hope too much damage hasn't been done." The pre-school is still sending me a bill for the last month of school when she didn't go there anymore. I want to send them our therapist bill and ask them to pay that because her going there contributed to her needing a therapist. I wonder what they would say about that.

Today after NR, she was playing baby with her sister again and telling me to help. It's very strange that she cries a specific cry, one that sounds like a tiny baby. She cries and then give that little cough sounding noise that babies make when they've cried themselves hysterical. She has always been disturbed by babies crying and finally was able to tell me that it was because of the babies in the orphanage. I asked why they cried and she said because they were hungry. I think it's great that she is willing to act this out through play.

I forgot to mention, she still sees her bubbles everytime she yawns. She almost always yawns during her fetals, but very seldom at any other times. Also, we used to have the teeth grinding during the fetal cross/measure, but now it starts during startle.

Developmental Optometrist

We went back to the Developmental Optometrist yesterday to finish up the last of her testing. I don't think we can get her into vision therapy yet because he is 45 minutes away and we just can't do it in conjunction with her sister's vision therapy. He mentioned that she performed better than any 5 year old he tested. This gave me the boost I needed to keep going with our NR program. It's getting to be such a chore and I'm burning out. She isn't, but I am. I guess it's easier to motivate myself than her.

One Notation

Just to let you know, we are still working on perfecting our patterns. Please remember that this is a representation of the patterns and that you should follow the advice of a NR practitioner for the exact hand/foot position/placement.

Last Night

I don't know what caused this, but last night she was constantly restless. I got no sleep. I'd like to say that adding milk back in the diet was responsible, but I don't think so. After going dairy free for so long with no results, I decided to gradually add it back into her diet. I started Saturday night. Yesterday, Sunday, she wanted to try to sit in the regular part of church instead of the quiet room. She did great!! She talked a few times, but was able to sit for an hour without being disruptive!!! This was a huge milestone for her. Her behavior was pretty much the same yesterday except when we were doing our NR. There was a bizzare turn of events. I didn't post this video, but on one of them, she tells me, "This baby is tired." I didn't know that was going on and thought she was being whiny. I was imitating the sounds she was making to try to get her to laugh and come out of it. I noticed tears and it had turned into sort of a cry. I tried to comfort her and she didn't let me. She asked her big sis(who was there to video) to be a baby and cry with her. She just looked at me and I whispered her to just go with it. I just watched not knowing what to do and she finally said, " Comfort us mom!" and so I did. She continued for a while and then it was over. I'm still not sure what to make of it.

I'm thinking it might be because of the new fetal pattern we have been doing. In the past, the new pattern has caused a reaction right away, so I'm really not sure. What makes me think it could be that pattern is that the past couple of days she hasn't wanted to do that one. Maybe we'll back off a little and do less reps. On a better note, yesterday before church she spontaneously said she loved me a bunch of times. Maybe this big growth in attachment is having a little conflict within her. I wish I could take it all away. How can a 5 year old understand all that is going on when a team of adults and her own parents can't quite grasp it?

I forgot the fetal cross and measure video

This one is the most difficult to get done with precision. I sort of have her head resting against my shoulder so I can lower her head making her chin go up to uncross and then push it back up for her chin to go down. All the while I am coaching her, chin up, chin down and cross. The positive to having her lie on top of me is that this one and the homologous stretch are a good abdominal workout for me.

Vestibular Fun!!!

These exercise balls are great for doing all kinds of vestibular work.

Crawling Back View

This is the view from the back to see how she has incorporated her toes into her crawling.

Homologous Stretch

I figured out this can be done best with her on top of me. I can control both her arms and legs at the same time. I have modified all of these so they can be done with one person assisting. What is in these vidoes was not possible a year ago. Our program has taken a long time because or her resistance and needing two people. Her level of cooperation has greatly improved. I'm not sure how it happened or why, but I think making it happen daily no matter what has made her realize there is no opting out. I think this time together everyday has helped with our attachment. Better attachment has probably contributed to cooperation. there are so many things going on, it's hard to know what is doing what. We have been doing the theraputic listening program for several months, maybe that has helped too. It doesn't matter at this point, it's the results that are important. I've run out of time to try things one at a time.
I had a better video, but I think the file was too big. I think you can get the idea from this open.

Startle

ATNR

Cross Homolateral Pattern?

Crawling

Creeping

Creeping

Pictures and Video

You can click on each picture to enlarge.
This is what our crawling mat looks like. It has a layer of foam padding underneath. The are the interlocking squares that are used for kids. I got mine at Sam's for $20.
they aren't the full width of the vinyl mat, so I used some smaller foam squares I already had. The blue tape is a guide for her to keep her knees together. Bette had suggested that I put tape down as a guide. We were pretending that it was a railroad track, so I decided to put tape across to make it look like tracks. The purple duct tape in the middle joins the 2 pieces of vinyl together, and she used to pretned that was the water. Anything outside the tracks is water now. Occasionally we play red light green light and the people have to pass. The heart shape stickers are there from before the tracks. Those were to help her keep her belly down. I would have never thought her crawling would progess to what it was. Not long ago, I asked Bette if she had become so proficient at crawing without using her feet that she may stay that way forever. She said no, much to my dismay... She was right. We now have a really nice looking crawl. I can't begin to tell you how many miles we have crawled before getting here. Our mat is 16 feet long, so one lap in 32 feet. So that has us crawling about 150 feet/day and creeping 300 feet. This calculates out to 20.68 miles of creeping and 10 miles of crawling/year!

At the end of our mat is out stamping station. I've included a picture of our mood stamps, they have been great. After each lap, we use a stamp as a lap counter. This has been a better way of counting as S is obsessed with counting and numbers. She hated counting 1-10, so I told her she could call them whatever number she wanted. For the 5 laps of crawling, we do 3 #9's and 2 #10's. It makes her fell like she is doing less. I have tried not counting for the patterns where we go up to 60, but she wants to count. She has learned counting to 60 this way, even though she cannot do this independently yet. The stamps have been a great way to count without counting.

We used to use a Leap Frog Letter factory toy where you would put in a letter and it would tell you it's name and it's sound. Every lap we would put a letter in. I also numbered poker chips so we could put a new one in line after each lap. Lap counters are a must for her. It has helped her learn to recognize her numbers. Creeping and crawling are the best times for learning.

I found my notes from the other day. I mentioned that I had these mood stamps and started a sentence with them. So her first response to I feel mad when....
was-"I'm mad when nobody loves me." Could she really feel this way? I was floored. Then she answered to I'm annoyed.....that you don't like me. This was 5 days ago. She hasn't come out with anything else like this. Today she answered to I'm happy when....you stop(NR) for hugs. Of course this called for a huge hug. Today during fetals, she was doing it wrong and I corrected her. Now she does these ontop of me so I can move her legs and keep her in a semi-fetal position. She flew off of me and said she didn't want to be ontop of me. I told her it was okay and she could do them on the floor next to me. She went ahead and did them without anymore problems. One day, we were playing with a throw blanket and hiding under it. I pretended she was in my tummy and then was 'born' when I lifted the blanket. Once, I did it partially hiding her under my shirt. She asked to do this today and I did. When she was born, I said, "Oh, what a sweet baby girl, look how beautiful she is!" all the while touching her like she had just been born to me and I was admiring her every detail. She said in a sweet little voice, "I love you." She said it with feeling like I have only heard a few times before. She wanted to do it again and we did. this time I was more elaborate, "Oh look, it's a girl! I always wanted a baby girl! etc, etc. She said she loved me again and it felt like we really could have been taken back to the moment she was born. I do love this venture we're on, even though it really hurts me so to know she has been so heartbroken at such a tender age. I would have never believed that a young child could hurt so much from being adopted. I really want to be to the point where she can just enjoy her childhood fully without worrying about such big things and just worry about normal kid stuff.

I Should Have Expected This

I kept thinking to myself, I'll have to check how long things have been going really well. It seems like such a long time since there has been any resistance to doing our daily NR. I shouldn't have had that thought because sure enough, today was different. This morning, I mentioned something about the story she told me about when she lived in China. It was in response to something she said earlier, so I didn't bring it up on my own. Then later she saw the first baby picture we have of her. She said, "I'm adopted." It's because that is the picture I have in her adoption books. Then when we were doing her exercises, she didn't want to do them. I told her that it would help her do the things she wanted to and help her brain and body work better together. I also mentioned that when she tried to talk and said the same word over and over again, her exercises would help with that. I think this was the first time she was embarassed. She said later that she wanted to talk like that. So don't I feel like the worst mom in the world after that. We went through many starts and stops, and she kept on asking for hug breaks which was great. I have only heard, "I love you mommy and I DO need you." She even resolved her issues with her sister being away for 10 days and said she loved her and needed her too. I really hate that she is tormented like that, but so thrilled that she is showing that she feels many different emotions. I found her big sisters old mood stamps. We play with stamps after each lap of creeping and crawling. I start off a sentence saying I feel (fill in the emotion) when(fill in the situation) asnd then I ask her to do the same. This is yielding some results. We have decided on a school and I hope it works out. The good thing is that is starts almost a week later than my 8th grader. So at least we will have a little time in between to get used to things. I am looking into working part time near where she goes to school to pay for some of the gas. We will be driving 30 minutes each way and in the begining, she will only go 3 hours. I will need to find something to do while I'm waiting. We might start vision therapy and that is 45 minutes away. We will be going 1X/week for her sister, so we will be in the car a lot.

Busy Day

Today started off with an appt at a prospective school. I was expecting it to be an obligatory stop just to say I exhausted all possibilities. I ended up really liking it and now my decision is even more difficult. I have an email in to the other school and I guess their answer will help me decide.

Next up was our 5 year check up at the pediatrician. The bad news is that the wax is back in her one ear. We have been vigilant about using drops daily. She did not cooperate with the hearing test, so we don't know if she even hears out of that ear. So looks like we'll be back to the ENT. She got 3 shots today, what a brave girl. She watched them do it and screamed the entire time but was quiet the instant it was over. She knew it was time to leave and that everything was be over, so she was happy.

We did most of our NR today even though I was hardly home at all. We just didn't do our fetals. I think with all she was through today, we can skip them for one day. It looks like we are going back to dairy since it didn't make a difference. We are going to try a supplement called Pediakids for anxiety. I checked out the ingredients with my pediatrician and she said it would be fine. Hopefully it will make a difference.

We are having a lovely Sunday all alone together. We did our NR work early this morning, so we have the entire day free! It feels wonderful. I'm not sure how we'll work things once school starts. Tomorrow I'm back to making phone calls. I sure hope I can feel good about where I send her, not just good, but really looking forward to it. Does such a school exist? When I last spoke with the school we will probably choose, they were going to have 8 children in the K class with a teacher and an aide. How can that not work out, right? I hope to get some videos posted in the next couple of days.

Well, we are still doing the dairy free thing. I don't know if it's just the circumstances of summer or other things, but I have noticed an increase in imaginative play. Maybe it's because I try to keep her away from TV, computer etc. It's just her and I for 3 days. It's exhausting but wonderful at the same time. She hates that everyone is away, but she's having fun. She is very mad at sis #3 who is visiting Grandma. She talked to her on the phone yesterday and said she didn't love her and didn't miss her. They are the closest, so she is most mad at her.

We are on a multivitamin now, liquid of course. I am sneaking the fish oil back in, but she could probably have more. I may have just written about this, but I had been giving her vitamins without iron. They look just like the vitamins with iron, so I just grabbed the wrong one. This is horrible since she was low on iron and I just got it to where it should be. I hope we didn't go low again. So maybe the addition of vitamins is giving her what she needs. She is BIG into letters the past few days. She can sound out and spell a few words and she is so excited. We are too!!! So I guess she is pretty much ready for kindergarten. She knows all of her letters and sounds and knows her numbers at least to 10. She can write all of the letters and numbers too. The good thing about the school she may go to is that they will take her wherever she can go, not just grade level. She has big potential in many areas. Maybe this will work out after all. NR went great today!

Bad News or Is It?

We just found out that the school we were planning on S attending didn't accept her. We spoke with someone back in May that made it seem like a done deal, all we had to do is make a decision and let them know. She was supposed to let us know when they hired the new teacher so we could interview her. I didn't hear anything, so I decided to email her about 2 weeks ago. I finally made an appt to see the principal last Thursday. She made it seem like she would get back to me soon. I emailed the original person who I spoke with in May and I didn't hear back from her. The principal called me today and said they decided not to take her because there was no one else her age in this program. It didn't really make sense because they want her to eventually be with the other kids in the regular classroom. There are only 8 or so children in the entire program K-8, so no one has more than 1 person their age. I am really upset that they couldn't have let me know sooner or let me know that she might not get in. Now I'm forced to look at another school and decide by next week. She has to be registered by 8/2 for her scholarship. I have to accept that it was meant to be this way and when one door closes, another opens. Maybe this other school will be the best thing for her and all will work out great. I just hate that I don't have many choices. NR went great today, hallelujia!

Last night she asked me, "Do you love me?" I was so surprised to hear her ask that. I tell her I love her a million times a day. She seems to really be processing her emotions. She clearly doesn't understand so much about interpersonal relationships. When her sister said she couldn't do something, she said she was sorry and that she made a mistake. The therapist wants me to teach her these phrases, but she is obviously just regurgitating them and doesn't understand the meaning.

New Pattern

We were given a new pattern to try today and wait to see if there is any reaction. Any of the fetals can bring things up, so this new one could bring some bad stuff. We know from experience to start slow and proceed with caution. We are hoping to work our way through her anxiety by doing these. NR went really well today, it definitely goes better earlier in the day. I'm the one who needs the encouragement to get moving. Bette will be in my area in about 6 weeks. It can't come soon enough, I need to hear some good news. S isn't good at changing her NR routine, so I'm not looking forward to that. I have added some things in on my own lately and she does fine with it. I asked her older sisters if they saw a difference since we went dairy free and they thought she was more energetic(that's not a good thing, she has the energy of 30 people). We still haven't potty trained for #2 yet, I don't know what we'll do when school starts. If it's only 3 hours/day, it shouldn't be a problem. I just hope that she isn't afraid to use the potty at school and they end up saying they can't handle her. I shouldn't worry about what might happen, I keep forgetting that worrying is a waste of time and energy.

Day 4 Dairy Free

Although I haven't noticed any big difference with dairy free, I am going to give it a few more days at least. Today she walked past a construction vehicle and it made a huge noise. Her sister was walking ahead of me holding her hand ao I had to ask her what her reaction was. Normally she would have jumped out of her skin and they told me she just asked what the noise was. Her usual anxiety in her own home is pretty much the same. Exercises took a little more time today but still went well.

Yesterday was a better day but I'm wondering if going off of dairy can cause some regression. I can't imagine, but she just seems more emotional. Last night her sleep was so restless, I got limited sleep as a result. Her anxiety has not changed at all so far. I'm not giving up yet, but this is discouraging. I am wondering if going dairy free is allowing her brain to clear a little and she is just processing more, making her a little more sensitive. I wish I knew the answer, I really hate the trial and error. Wouldn't it have been nice to see the instant results like the other family that tried it.

We blew through exercises today, it was wonderful! Then we went to see the new Winnie the Pooh movie. It was cute and she did really well. I had to have my hands over her ears because of the deafening previews. Why is the volume so loud anyway? She did enjoy it though, but next movie we are just going to bring along her headphones. I wish she could tolerate earplugs, at least they would be more presentable. This morning, I turned on the TV and she asked me to change it after a while. She commented at one point, "Look at all the happy faces." What a thrill to hear her make such an observation. she studies expressions in books for a few months now, she is really trying to figure out facial expressions. I just got her a series of books that seem like they will do a good job of teaching some social skills. they are the old Little Miss and Mister series. If I remember, I will post how they are.

Last night was horrible. S went for a walk with big sis and her boyfriend. She had a flower and dropped it on the way home. Big sis doesn't realize how careful she needs to be with her words, and I think she said something that S perceived as rejection. Somehow, she was saying she didn't want the flower anymore even when big sis wanted to pick it up for her. At least that's the story I got. She came home really upset. This just snowballed into another area, what to wear to beg. She had the dress up outfit on and wanted to wear it to bed. I told her it wouldn't be comfortable earlier but didn't say no. So she started asking again and after this incident and it being bedtime, I said yes. All was well until she said she wanted to wear it tomorrow for exercises. I said no, but she could wear it to bed. On a normal day, this would have been fine. I took her upstairs to bed and it just got worse and worse. She wanted it off now for bed. I had this long talk with her about how I don't know how she feels because she says the opposite when she doesn't get her way(per therapist). She was in stuck mode and going back and forth, so I just told her that if she was going to keep saying the opposite, that I would make all her decisions for her and that she would not be given a choice. She said she wanted the outfit off and I told her it stays on because I don't know how she really feels. It was a horrible exchange, but I felt that was the right thing at the moment. We got into bed(both in my bed) and she continued. Then she said she wanted to be alone in her bed. I knew this wouldn't work and that she really didn't want that. I told her that I was making the decisions and she was going to stay in my bed. She clearly needed me, but had to say the opposite. She would have stayed in her bed to prove me wrong, at least temporarily. She has to act so strong sometimes, it really hard to watch. I told her I needed to leave to get ready for bed and she yelled, "Ditch me, I want you to ditch me!" I told her that I don't ditch anyone and that I would be back. When I got back, she needed to lay ontop of me and eventually next to me. When I pulled my arm out from under her, she was so insulted that she just moved away completely. I woke up feeling as horrible as when I went to sleep. I hope that this is short lived and that she wakes up her happy self. She does still have the outfit on, I hope taking it off to get ready for church doesn't bring it up again.

Update-she woke up like I did, remembering the whole episode. She ended up saying she didn't want to wear the outfit from last night when I told her we would be changing it for church. She had a white tank top underneath that she left on after taking her outfit off. She said she didn't want that either and after discussing it with her to no avail, I took it off in a little fit of my own and flung it across the room. She just layed in my arms for a long time, then was over it and went upstairs where we chose an outfit to wear. Everything was fine after that. We got home from church and after lunch she decided she liked the clothes again. She has them on now. Why do I perpetuate this with her? I actually try to diffuse it as quickly as possible, but hse refuses to let things go. The past couple of days, she gives a little soft punch when she wants attention. This usually happens when we are out and talking to someone. I told her this was not acceptable and that I gave her a little signal to use when she needs to get my attention.

Nothing New

We ended up skipping yesterday because I ended up being gone 4 hours and it was just too late. Today went well even though we skipped a day. As a matter of fact, it went really well. It was just the 2 of us home for most of the day and we had a great day together. Today was her first day 100% of dairy. I haven't noticed any difference with anything. I am going to give it at least a week and see if there is anything. I attribute it to a retained moro reflex. The more I read about it, I am convinced that this is the reason for her anxiety. She test positive for it, there is no doubt about it. The good news is that there is more I can be doing to inhibit it. Now I just need to implement it. Some of the exercises that I have found are too difficult for her. I have contacted Bette to see if she has some suggestions. I have a phone number for someone who does cranial sacral therapy, so I will call them on Monday.

An Emotional Day

I am just loving that fact that attachment is taking off so, but it comes at a price. S is getting anxiously attached to me. Yesterday I needed to accompany big sis to at least a 2 hour appt. S kept saying, "I don't want to be away from you." OMG, so now what am I supposed to do? I wish I had a direct line to a councelor at that momment to tell me what to say. It all worked out in the end, but I felt so horrible to have to leave her. I ended up pacifying her by telling her she could go to the next appt with me. This finally diffused her, she was not letting go. So while I'm thrilled she finally wants to be with me, I don't know what to do. I hope this doesn't happen when she goes to school. I can't worry about things that may never happen, it wastes too much energy. She wanted me to sleep with her in her bed last night(she's in a toddler bed). I told her I had to leave once she went to sleep and she seemed agreeable. Since I was so guilty for what went on earlier, I decided to stay with her when she woke up when I tried to sneak out. I brushed my teeth and got my pillow and came back to her. She hugged me tight and said, "I love you and I DO need a mommy." It made it worth sleeping in a fetal position crammed in a toddler bed. I woke up at 5AM so cramped and in pain, I decided to leave. She didn't wake up. You can tell she has older sisters because she says to me, "Don't ditch me in the night." Gotta love that older sister influence-NOT! We got through our NR in record time yesterday, hope it goes that well today.