Miss L is 17 months old today and let me tell you, she is really coming into her own. My laid back, mellow, quiet baby has turned into a full fledged sassy, melodramatic, strong willed, tantrum throwing drama queen! If she wants something and she can't have it - WATCH OUT! She throws herself down on the floor and screams bloody murder. I completely ignore this behavior (which gets her even angrier) and out of the corner of my eye I can see that she looks up every now and again to see if I'm paying attention. Finally, when she gets frustrated that I'm not falling for her 'act', she gets up and then pretends to fake fall down and hurt herself to see if that will get a rise out of me! She's one funny chick!
Her attachment has really grown by leaps and bounds in the past month, and I am feeling so good about where we are now. I knew that there would be challenges initially with attachment, but (naively) I never thought that we would still be struggling so much after 6, 7, 8 months home. I now realize that attachment is truly an ongoing, constantly developing and changing thing and you can't lose hope if it does not 'click' as easily for you as it seems to for other families/children. If there is anyone out there reading who is still struggling with attachment after several months home and feeling down, don't lose hope - just keep on persevering and doing those attachment activities. There were so many times where I felt like all of the emotional and physical energy I was putting into the attachment work would never pay off, and as horrible as it sounds, I really resented L at times. I felt like I was giving everything of myself and getting nothing from her in return, and that is hard to do day in and day out. It is like going to job every day and no matter how hard you work or what you do, all your boss does is yell at and berate you all day long and tell you what a horrible employee you are - totally unrewarding and demoralizing. That is how I felt at times.
But now I'm finally starting to see the payoffs for all of my hard work. I started using a babysitter one day/week for two hours a few months ago. Right now, I use her so that I can volunteer at the boys' school, with the hope that I can increase her days/ hours eventually so that I can return to work part time. The first couple of times the babysitter came, L went straight to her and sat in her lap. She didn't care when I left and barely acknowledged me when I came home. She would even sometimes whimper or even cry when I took her back from the sitter (you can imagine how crappy that made me feel). But L has now done a complete 180 over the past couple of months. As soon as she sees the sitter now, she starts crying and holds on to me for dear life, and she screams bloody murder when I leave (other adoptive parents out there will relate to how excited I was the first time she screamed when I left!). And the best part is that when I come home, she is ECSTATIC. She RUNS right into my arms with a huge smile on her face and wants nothing to do with the sitter once I'm home (in fact, she starts waving goodbye to the sitter as soon as I pick her up!). And even better, she does this (crying when I leave and happy when I come back) even when I leave her with daddy!! She has always preferred dad, so this is HUGE. She is now showing a clear preference for both dad and mom - she misses us when we're gone and is happy when we return; she will go to others that she knows, but when she wants something or gets hurt, it is mom and dad that she turns to. In other words, she seems to finally 'get' that we're mom and dad - that we're not just people meeting her needs that could be replaced with any old person.
Okay, so now on to catch up from the past couple of weeks. Here are a couple of pictures from B's Kindergarten Thanksgiving feast at school. His class dressed up as Native Americans and the other Kindergarten class dressed up as pilgrims and they had a friendship feast in the school cafeteria.
Here is B walking in holding hands with his pilgrim buddy.
And here he is chowing down on his Thanksgiving grub.
As is tradition, we drove to my in laws' in Ohio for Thanksgiving. The boys enjoyed watching football with pop pop.
Here we are getting ready to eat the huge Thanksgiving spread that mom mom always puts out. She's never in any of the pictures because she is always too busy in the kitchen! It was a wonderful dinner, as usual, and a nice time to reflect on how truly blessed we are.
The next day, my MIL and I headed out early to shop, while the boys and L took a little nature walk around my in laws' property. They live on 100+ acres and the boys love to go exploring, though B was apparently complaining the whole time that he was cold (and I really can't say I blame him. It WAS cold there! We even had some snow flurries). My FIL took these pictures. He always takes great shots.
On Saturday, we drove to Cleveland to visit with my SIL and family and see their new house. They recently moved back to Ohio from Northern CA. This is the best we could do for a picture of the kids with their cousin. L wasn't in the picture taking mood, so we're just happy she actually sat there long enough to get a picture of all of them together.
And that about wraps up our last couple of weeks. I hope everyone had a blessed and joyous Thanksgiving celebration!
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