Personal Reflections

As I sat with my daughter feeding her pancakes this morning, I was thinking back to where we started. Most moms will never go through what we are, but my daughter has taught me so much through all of this. I wish for her life to have been easier for her, but it's not, so we have made the best out of it all. I recieve criticism from family members and strangers for feeding her instead of her feeding herself. They don't understand that feeding her is a bonding tool and very important for attachment. If she started eating anything solid before she was almost 3 years old, maybe I wouldn't be feeding her at 4 and a half. I am so grateful that she is actually eating a solid food AND from a utensil. One recent development is her desire to be like mommy. Oh my gosh, how exciting is that for me? I remember reading about attachment and development activities that had your child copy what you did. That might work for other children, but my precious girl was just too fearful to try anything new, let alone copy me. I bought us matching shirts and she was so happy. She wants to grow up to be big like mommy. I told her she needs to eat good food to grow up to be big like me, I think it's actually motivating her to eat more. We still struggle with eating a variety of foods. She gets a huge variety through a bottle, but she eventually needs to get away from that. She is capable of using a cup, but she won't use a sippy cup or a straw. She could still get the concoction that is in her bottle from a cup. Is it hurting her still using a bottle? No, it's just getting harder for mom to take the unspoken criticism in public. You'd think I'd be over that by now.

Another thing taken for granted by people who haven't been through attachment difficulties is eye contact. Pre-adoption me thought this point must be so overrated. Boy, did I have a giant learning curve! Now, when my daughter looks me right in the eyes, I am flooded with joy at such a simple gesture. I am so grateful for this journey, I appreciate so many things that get unnoticed by people with average children. I thought I appreciated every detail of my other 3 birth children, and I did, but I had no idea that there was so much more depth to appreciate.

I was reading back to some of my earlier entries and it's really amazing to see where we've come. At 15 months, I had a child who couldn't sit up by herself, refused all solid food, refused consoling, wouldn't be affectionate, and most remarkably, her brain had no idea that her left hand existed. I was not too worried at first, knowing the trauma of adoption could cause regression. All of the stories I read were about how quickly they catch up once they are home. I counted on that to be true for us, but it was soon apparent that was not going to be our story. Did I begin to worry? YES! I was so lost with no information and no local professionals that had any idea what to do other than catagorize her into the closest diagnosis. As time went on, I did my own research and connected with other families who had similar struggles. None quite fit ours, and I admit I was a little resentful that they were all special needs adoptions and ours was not. I feel horrible writing this and admitting that I felt that way, but I think it was mostly because I had no opportunity to prepare ahead. I had to waste valuable time searching for infomation when we could be helping her. It wasn't fair to her that we couldn't find her help. I wish I could remember who posted about Bette on my yahoo group. I think I can look it up in the archives. I had such little time to research NR, and I was such a sceptic. It was a lot of money to pay and a big risk. I felt it was a risk because so many others who were supposed to be in the know didn't really know anything. I was optimistic though when I read the description of NR, it mentioned all of the things we needed to work on and so many more. I decided it was worth the risk and I was so thrilled to find someone who actually understood and offered a solution. There was only one thing Bette had never seen, and that was S's obsession with circles. She still loves circles, but is a little less obsessed.

Well, with so many interruptions while writing this, my thoughts are all over the place. This is just as normal as I can get it, without the promise of someday things being different. There is a lot of peace that comes with accepting life as it is. It doesn't mean you compromise so much that you don't get what you need to accomplished. It just means that it might take you longer to get things done, or it may mean that you need to let some things be less than perfect. Accepting things the way they are and your limitations because of it, allow you to let go of the things you are spinning your wheels on and aren't going to happen. Letting that go leaves more time for the things that are higher priority. I never thought I'd get to this place, but it's another life lesson that I've learned through this incredible journey with my special daughter. She is teaching me about a part of life that I would never be priviledged to know if it hadn't been for her. What a blessing she is to show me that obstacles should never get in the way of happiness. I love her more than words could ever describe.

Disney

We had a great trip to Disney World this past weekend. Rides that S was formerly afraid of-she wasn't afraid anymore. Each of her 3 older sisters wanted a turn to sit with her on a ride because they wanted to see her enjoy it. They are so thrilled and proud big sisters, they share in our joy at seeing their sister overcome her obstacles. I've been trying to think of a list of things to discuss with Bette, and I am thankfully coming up short!!! How exciting is that? We went to a new OT last week and I was pleasantly surprised that she seemed to "get it!" I didn't like how she wasn't sensitive to saying negative things about S in front of her, but I willl have time to tell her that I prefer not to say things in front of her. She is 4 1/2 and knows exactly what is being said. We're re-visiting OT because I wanted a new eval to see where we still needed work. The only thing I want to work on is self-regulation. The only place we are really seeing this is with pre-school where she is with a lot of activity and other children. When she is at the park, she plays beautifully with other children. She used to be right up in their face and invade their personal space. That's not really an issue anymore. We still have sensitivity to sound, but she is really good at covering her ears. We are doing well with potty training, I still don't know if there is a physical reason that it is taking so long. I accepted long ago that she is on her own timetable and that I am just going to enjoy the ride rather than wonder when we're are getting off the ride. Of course I would love someone to tell me the endpoint, but who can complain when their child is pure joy. I have dealt with so many things with my daughter, and our entire family is totally immersed in this because families experience everything together, good and bad. I am so grateful for what I'm not dealing with. We have never had a sleep issues or rages. We don't have manipulation or controlling behavior. When people say God never gives you more than you can handle, isn't that the truth? I never expected this journey, but I am a better person for it. It has taught me more patience, more compassion, more understanding, less judging, and gratitude. I hope I can assist others through our trials. I wrote on the Neuro-network group today about 'lasts' being more important than 'firsts." I am so happy I read about the lasts when my older children were still young. The hardest last has been when then turn mommy into mom. Since I have 3 children older than S, she calls me 'mom'. I told her, "I'm mommy to you little one!" My almost 20 year old will still call me mommy on occasion. I think the lasts for our kids who struggle are very important. The last time that S covers her ears when fireworks go off will be a reason to celebrate. The last time she asks me to carry her up the stairs will be a huge reason to celebrate. My aching knees will be happy! Last week at Chinese class, she said to me, "I'll go get the snack myself!" This was a huge deal since we were in an auditorium type room on a college campus and the snacks were as far away as you can get from where we were. She always surprises me with the things she wants to do. I have been in such a protective mode with her, I know I don't give her all of the opportunities that I should. I think since she's my 4th child, I just have no pressure for her to meet traditional milestones. I love to see her with other children her age now because the gap is closing between them. I wish I could see into the future to know if she will eventually be like her same age children.

While I write this, she has been beside me. She loves to play with cars and she turns them on their side to show that they are sleeping. She said to me, "Look at the Z's coming out." She calls the ZZZZ's 'symbols' to show they are sleeping. I think I wrote about this earlier when she first said it, but I will tell you again just in case I didn't write it before. I asked her what the letter Z was for(meaning the sound) and instead of telling me the sound she said, "Z is for snoring" Ahh, the benefit of reading.

The OT said since she was so attuned to sound, she was probably more of a visual learner. This OT is very observant, I can't wait to see how she can help us. We will go weekly for a while and see if it helps. She said she will work closely with the teacher, which is very exciting. Maybe if the teacher hears it from an OT, she will belive it. Sometimes she wants to treat S like any other kid, I'm not sure if it's because she thinks she can help any child, or she doesn't quite buy the SID reason for behavior.

That's all for now, we go for our re-eval next week. I can't wait.

2011

2011 is off to a good start. Hopefully 2011 will also see the end of NR. I think we are just doing some fiune tuning now, as I don't have a huge list that I go through at each re-eval. I've been composing our graduation post to the group, since I want it concise but all inclusive. A bit premature you may be thinking, but I think it's important to remember all the progress we've made. It's been hard to convince people that the NR is reponsible since we started so young. S would be advancing and progressing no matter what. I think that attachment had a lot to do with her holding back. The other day she told me something that happened a year ago. She remembered the sequence of events. From what I remember, I wasn't even sure what she could comprehend at that point. She had us all fooled. I had thought that could be a possibility all along, because she would never let on that she knew anything. That was actually a pretty clever method of self protection. Now that she is feeling safer, she is willing to open up and reciprocate with conversation. She always talked a lot, but it was just monologue or asking questions or making comments about something. She would still prefer not to answer direct questions. I still think there could be auditory processing problems going on. Sometimes I have to rephrase things to get an answer. Is it my presistence that gets her to answer, or is it the different presentation that makes her answer. She is going through some speech 'difficulties' right now. Difficulties isn't the right word, but I'm not sure what to call it. She'll repeat a word over and over in a sentence because it seems like she can't speak as fast as her brain is producing words. She'll say, "Can I, can I, can I, and then what she wants. It's not stuttering, because she can form the word, it's just she can't get it all out fast enough. Not long ago, she would just repeat your question when you asked it. Now we get answers. She is very guarded, especially emotionally. She is most sensitive to her 13 year old sister. If M doesn't want her in the room or rejects her in any way, she comes out complaining and saying that her feelings are hurt. She's pretty much the only person who can make her cry. The one remarkable thing that is now effective is punnishment or threat of punnishment. Consequenses never worked before. You could take away all of her possesions or threaten anything and it had no meaning to her. Now, I can ask her if she wants to go in time out and she'll usually do what I want. She is also very concerned if I am happy or not. She wants to make sure I'm happy all of the time. I can also tell her she'll make me sad and she'll comply with the request. I don't use it often because this probably has some detrimental effect on attachment. We go back for another re-eval in a few weeks. Hopefully we'll get an endpoint by that time. I need that to keep going.