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.