Summer!

Here's a quick recap of 2014 so far. We finished the school year and overall it was a fabulous year. There has been a lot of progress in the social/emotional area. Since school was a safe place, she could let her guard down a little and enjoy. I can see lots of obstacles that are there and will probably continue to be. The attachment yahoo group is really a lifeline for me. Equipping yourself with as much information allows you to identify what your child needs. I am no longer expecting an endpoint to all of this, it just morphs into something else. It's okay though, it isn't any different than any other child. My other children haven't been skating through life without any worries, even though they don't have to deal with any of the issues their sister did. With all of my children, I think the biggest hurdle was dealing with other people. Same with S, things would be wonderful if we lived in our own little bubble. She has been handling loss so much better. It takes a lot to induce a rage. Maybe we are just better at avoiding them, who really knows? Her oldest sister is far away at school and she didn't see very much of her this year. Now she is away again for 6 weeks and although it was hard on S, she did really well. Her other two siblings are away this week also. She said to me at night, my whole family is gone. Even thought she knows they will come back, a part of her believes it will never happen. She just celebrated her 8th birthday! She was filled with anticipation and enjoyed everything. It is so much fun to see her look forward to something like that. It wasn't very long ago that she didn't look forward to anything. The first few years, she didn't even seem to understand the concept of holidays and she was afraid of everything. I think last year was the first time she wasn't afraid of a candle on her cake. This year, she even asked to have the fancy candle that is like fireworks(the Chinese Lotus candle). She had a dentist appointment, her second or third cleaning already. This is gigantic for her! She also had sealants put on her bottom molars. She finally allowed the spit sucker in her mouth. She used to be so scared of that. Now all we need to do is conquer the electric toothbrush. We got a new cat in our house, and she was able to relate to his fear of being in a new home. She said, "He is scared going to a new family like I was with my new family." She is a survivor, and she will use this for good someday. She has already taught us the resilience of a child and we have grown right along with her. You can't ever be too compassionate. Opening your heart hurts like crazy, but expanding your capacity to love is so much more rewarding than the hurt you open yourself up to.