Catching Up-again

We had our Spring Break this past week, so there hasn't been any time to catch up. I really need to prioritize better. I have a bunch of organize books and websites to peruse, yet don't make time to do it. I just typed a huge post and it didn't save!!! So much for trying to catch up. Now I don't have the time to write it all over again. So the short version is that we had a breakthrough with emotion. I think I was able to turn around the situation and make it something good. She was saying she didn't want to live and then when we went to bed, she was letting out these deep half scream, half cries. I told her how proud I was of her that she let herself cry. She really wasn't letting herself cry, but I grabbed the opportunity to convince her that it was an amazing thing. It really was, because I have only seen this type of release only 2 other times. They were each very healing, but horrible to go through. She seemed to be comforted by the thought that what she was doing was a good thing. When it was over, her mood took a complete about face. She was sweet and happy and telling me she wanted to live forever. The next morning all was fine. This morning she woke up saying she was in a bathroom and lost forever.(her nightmare) This comes from our 2 recent trips where she ran ahead onto an elevator and train. I had to tell her she could get lost if the doors closed and we weren't right behind her. When we are pulling luggage, we can't run into those places as fast as her. I wish I had ime to elaborate like I did in the erased post, but I don't. We go for our re-eval in less than 2 weeks. I am not expecting to graduate, but we are close. I'm ready to move on and do the integrated listening program with her over the summer. That should take care of any remaining issues.

New Realization

Yesterday, S was at Chinese school. She normally sits in fear of the bell ringing, getting anxious 20 minutes before it is rung, with her hands over her ears. Yesterday, it went off and she calmly asked, "What was that?" What is even more remarkable is that we hadn't been to class in 3 weeks. That would have given her more reason to be anxious. I have been seeing less sensitivity to sound lately, what a blessing that is!!! She is even trying to eat more food. I spoke with her quite a bit about eating more foods when we were away. Yesterday, she tried a new flavor of greek yogurt and liked it! It was raspberry, with SEEDS. I thought the minute she detected a seed it would be over. She only had 2 bottles yeasterday. The end is in sight, finally. My only concern is replacing the nutrition properly. One day none of this will be a concern....

School

We had a report card conference with the teachers yesterday. They said that all of the children were asking when she would be back the entire time she was gone. When Monday rolled around, they all anticipated her return. They were so sad she didn't come in that day. They thought she wasn't coming back at all :( (she slept until 1 pm that day after being awake most of the night)
On Tuesday, we got caught in traffic for a big event, so we were 30 minutes late for school. When she made her grand entrance, she was mobbed by all of her classmates. Her teacher said she was quite overwhelmed, so she made the kids give her space. Apparently the rest of the week, everyone wanted to parter up with her, she was the one to be with. What exciting news for this mommy! I hope this does wonders for her self esteem, even though I think she only has self esteem issues with adults. She can't wait for her first soccer game today. We did her NR before our teacher conference. She really wanted to dilly dally, but we got through it all. I think we might work through this weekend to make up for lost time.

Catching Up

I think we are finally over jet lag. It was a busy trip, but I think we got a lot accomplished. We went to establish a connection to a small orphanage to make some improvements there. After visiting the orphanage and a school in one day, after hours of travel, S said she wanted to leave and go back to our hotel. She was clearly overwhelmed. We went to a private foster home with about 40 children a few days later. We have been here 2 times before in previous years. Each time, she has some issues with being with the babies. We stayed for several hours, and she actually played with some of the older babies. This was a huge step for her. She really managed the trip better than any typical 5 year old would. Considering her circumstances, she did better than anyone could have expected her to! Her latest question for me is, "Are you (im)pressed and proud and big happy with me?" Of course I always answer yes. She really needs my approval with everything, which is a huge step with attachment. Yesterday she started soccer. I signed her up mainly so she can meet other kids her age that live nearby. Since she doesn't go to the local elementary school, she doesn't know anyone that lives near her. She had so much fun! I couldn't be happier. I think she is actually going to be really good at the game. Without NR, this could never have been possible. I just wish others were overwhelmingly convinced by our progress. Even though some people have seen where she started, so many are content to think it would have happened on it's own. I KNOW it wouldn't have. I saw the progress before NR, and it was at a snails pace. I saw the quantum leap once we dedicated ourselves to it daily. There is no doubt that this works. I think the reason parents don't want to do it is because they can't make the commitment. I thought I could in the beginning and I couldn't. You need a child who can give some level of cooperation. I have had several people move my daughter's limbs to get through it, and it doesn't work. We needed a level of attachment first, but ironically, it came from the time spent doing NR. In the beginning, a lot of the time was spent trying to do NR, but not accomplishing it. This is where the attachment came in. The quantity of one on one time got us to where we needed to be. I think she also saw that I wasn't going to give up, so she had to give in eventually. I really don't think we are going to graduate this time, and I'm not ready to hear it. I am going into our next eval expecting to hear we need more time, and will be happily surprised to find out we are finished. We have only been doing 5 days a week instead of 7. We also have had an almost 2 week break. We didn't do anything yesterday, but did start back the day before. She did great!!! She was so cooperative, I was pleasantly surprised. We go for our re-eval in about 4 weeks, I so hope we are finished.

Confused

I heard back from Bette about a question I had. I thought I had it this mood stuff all figured out and was so sure it was attachment. Although I still think that is most of it, Bette gave a neurological explanation also. She said that we still need more corpus collosum connections and communication for her logic and emotion to be able to balance one another. That is the really simplified way of explaining what she wrote, so it may not be exactly how she explained it. Since S is just being able to identify and feel emotion, she is very behind on her ability to express it. She still can't identify that you cry when you are sad. Our 15 year old Chocolate Lab died 2 days ago. She took the news well and has been processing it by asking questions. She said she was very sad, but didn't cry. She is worried that we might die also. I told her that we should live a long time, but that we trust God has a plan for all of our lives and that He has it all worked out. Yesterday, we did our NR even though it was Saturday. We missed Friday because of the dog, so we had to make it up. She was perfectly fine with it. We will miss an entire week, probably more because we are going to China. In the meantime, we will keep going in anticipation of graduating in April!

Good News

Yesterday was the dreaded ENT appt. She took the news well that we were going because the last 2 appt he didn't need to remove any wax. This time he did, and she screamed-loudly, but we got through it. When we left, she was the happiest kid in the world. We didn't get to our NR until about 7pm. She did it with such cooperation and happiness. We usually get this from her when she is stretched beyond her comfort zone. It seems like she sees how bad thing could be, so she is happier with what is. Hopefully this whirlwind trip to China will be great for her. I just hope she gets over jet lag quickly. She has in the past, so I think it will be okay.

Now the bad news, our 15 year old dog died today. I hope she can cope with it, especially since I can't.

Falling Behind

We took more than a few days off. Friday we had big sisters home, then the weekend(we take weekends off in the home stretch) and Monday was no school. It has become apparent that attachment is the biggest obstacle to getting our NR done. I think that now that we only have a few things to do, she is maybe not taking it seriously enough. I just don't know, I only know that this part is really hard. S is going through some tough emotional times right now and I'm not really sure I know what to do. Our 15 year old dog has days to live, so I don't know how that will play out. School is really getting to her, the teacher said she cried over her work yesterday. We have another conference set for Monday with the teacher and principal. We may need to go back to more half days which I won't mind a bit.

The good news about the past week is that S lost her first tooth!!! It got wiggly on a Wednesday and was out on Friday. I hope they all go that quickly. She looks absolutely adorable!! She was so excited about the tooth fairy, she said she can't wait to lose more. This was the kid who obsessed over losing teeth the minute she found out that her baby teeth would come out. She asked me daily until I finally showed her a diagram of it on the computer. Once she could visualize what happens, she stopped obsessing over it.

She had a really hard time tonight, so we took a bath first and then she did just a few of each of her exercises. I didn't want her to think she could get away with not doing them, I just waited until she was in a better mood and then got some of it in. She was very upset before she went to sleep and started to cry a bit like the one time before. She just gave a few loud grunts and then she was better. I told her she could continue if it made her feel better and then she said she didn't want to be loud and wake anyone up. I told her how sweet and considerate that was. I hate to see her like this, I hope it ends soon.

Best Day Ever

So as we lie in bed and talk, I ask, "What was the best part of your Valentine's Day?" She answered, "Loving you!" Then she said, "Let's go to sleep, I don't want to talk anymore." I guess there was no topping that one. Needless to say, those sweet words were the best thing I could have heard.

We did out NR without much issue. She started to get a little negative but it was quickly turned around.

I met with her teacher today and found out that her statements about me and her teacher not being proud of her work started a long time ago. I told her in probably too sugar coated a manner that I needed to know those kinds of things. She told me that she was at the top of her class and was doing great. She said that she has made tremendous progress since the beginning of the year. I also found out that they moved the baby room. I said I was considering holding her back and she said she hadn't even considered that but would honor our wishes and we could discuss it. I am torn about this, but the decision will seem clearer in a couple of months, depending on where she is going to attend.

Ahhhhh.....

Well, Sunday night was an absolute disaster. I was reading her a bedtime story and when I was finished, she threw the book up in the air. It landed on the bed, but I strenly told her not to do that again because it could have hurt us. She immediately went into the "I'm bad" mantra. I told her she wasn't bad, she just made a mistake and that I'm telling her so she knows not to do it. She just kept saying it. I know not to engage her and that I need to repeat that I love her over and over again. That always makes it stop. She started getting more forcefull with her tone, so I told her that was okay to yell it out if that made her feel better. She screamed it so hard her little body shook. I just held her and told her I loved her no matter what. The lights were out because it was time for sleep, but I could feel her little cheeks had tears on them. She was starting to wimper and take deep breaths like she wanted to cry. I told her it was okay to cry and that crying sometimes makes us feel better. She cried a little and then it all stopped. I told her over and over again that there was nothing she could say or do to make me not love her. I told her she was a sweet girl and not a bad girl, she was all sweet and not all bad. She drifted off to sleep soon after. She woke up around 3 and I put my hand on her to let her know I was there. She pipes up and says, "I'm all sweet now!" I said, "Yes baby, you are all sweet." It killed me to think she must have been thinking about it all that time. She woke up the happiest child I ever saw. I was walking on pins and needles waiting for fallout. It never came. She was happier that she usually is the entire day. We didn't get started on our NR until after 7pm. I was so afraid it would cause her to slip into her mood. That never came either. I told her we needed to go out of order on our exercises which should have produced some opposition. I told her we needed to do the tonic neck because we didn't get to that one last time. Since this is her new least favorite, I didn't want to skip this one again if she started going downhill. I had already made up my mind that I wouldn't push her because of what had just happened the night before. She started doing them herself! I asked her to do 10 more because she started getting sloppy. She didn't even protest at that, even though I could clearly see that she didn't want to do 10 more. We did the rest of them together and nothing set her off. She went to bed without a problem and there was nothing negative.

This morning, we were running late for school and I was upstairs getting dressed. She was yelling to her sister from downstairs. Her sister was getting ready too and not able to answer her or fullfill her requests. I was getting so annoyed at the yelling, I went to the top of the stairs and told her to stop yelling and go sit on the couch until we came down. I can't think of a day that that wouldn't turn into her shouting how bad she is. She actually listened to me and went into the kitchen. I was irritated at my own inability to stay calm and regretted saying anything to her in a harsh tone. I cam down and thanked her for listening to me. We got in the car and everything was great. They are having a Valentine's Day celebration at school today, she has been looking forward to it for so long. I really hope this is a turning point for her and not a temporary thing. She has so much inside that is afraid to come out. We are going back to China in just a little over 2 weeks for only a week for a charity project I am starting. Hopefully it will be really good for her. Anytime she is stretched out of her comfort zone, she makes some major advancements. It is going to be exhausting, but I think each positive trip to China helps give her security.

What is going on????

I feel like we are back to where we were a year ago with some old behaviors surfacing. I am trying to figure out what is going on so I know what to do about it. Today, someone complimented my hair. As we walked away, S said, "My hair doesn't look good." I asked her what made her think that, no one said anything about her hair. Before that, the cat knocked a plant over. As I was going over to clean it up, she asked, "Did I do that?" I wish I knew what she was thinking and why. It's so hard when I have always kept things positive, I've followed all the rules for theraputic parenting. If I am doing everything I'm supposed to, how does this happen in the first place? I can't erase her past, as much as I would like to. How do I prevent the past from overshadowing her future? Yesterday, she had a clear memory of her life in China. She didn't want to talk about it when I asked her about it. I just hope I don't look back and wish I had seen something I should have done very differently. I am so analytical about everything, so careful to not make many mistakes. I see others who fly by the seat of their pants and everything turns out just fine.

I plan on a conference with the teachers next Monday. I am going to have to use some very strong wording to get my point across. I think they haven't told me about what is going on at school because they think the parents are the problem. I have been too nice so far, they haven't taken me seriously. The small school is great for her, but it has it's limits. I can't go beyond the principal, she owns the place.