Our sweet girl is doing so well, but I have really been watching her for things that we should not ignore. She just had her first night terror since she has been with us. These are usually harder on Mama and Baba as babies don’t remember them the next morning, but that doesn’t stop it from being hard for us to experience. She just woke up crying and none of the usual things would console her. Our touch seemed to aggravate her. I had pulled her into our bed, but she would not relax at all, just crying. I tried to distract by seeing if she wanted something to drink, but that didn’t help either. Finally, I tried putting her back in her bed and wrapping her blankets tight around her body and she started to stop crying and went back to sleep with her soothing uh-uh sound that she makes. Gah, that just about ripped my heart out.
Some other things that I have noticed is that if she takes a little tumble on the floor, she will not cry. I try to make a big deal out of it and comfort her and say "Owie, owie" so that she will hopefully realize that it is supposed to hurt. Now, she did take a little tumble off of the bed last night and she truly cried over that. That was good to know that she has some sense of what hurts. I comforted her and she was just fine after a minute or two. She will sometimes try to bonk me in the face with a toy or just her hands and then laughs. I just keep telling her "Gentle, gentle" when she does this. Then I will take her hands and softly rub my face with them. She has been very possessive of food, and I am sure this is something she has learned from being at the orphanage as well. She sometimes doesn’t even want me to hold her snack cup, but I will try to firmly hold the handle and make her take the Cheerios or whatever from me one at a time. She struggles a little at first, but then she will stop pulling the cup and let me feed her. Another thing she has done is that she will hit herself in the face when she is mad. She doesn’t do it hard, but we just try to stop her and comfort her softly. I know that these are all probably very normal behaviors that the kiddos pick up in the orphanage. I hope that we are reacting and doing the right things when they happen. I know that I have read a lot on this, but I don’t really have the time to go back and check to make sure we are handling it correctly. I am just kind of going by what I hope is info stored in my head and our basic parental instincts. I know that there are several moms who read who have adopted internationally. If any of you have any advice or words of wisdom from your experience, would you mind e-mailing me privately? It is just nice to have reassurance from those who have been there.
I am not super concerned about these things, as I think that they will eventually work themselves out as she grows. She has otherwise been really learning who her Mama and Baba are and is doing well with eye contact and cuddling. She does not want to go to other people so far, so I think that is very good as well. I don’t delude myself into thinking that attachment is a one time thing. It is a process that takes time to develop and grow, but I couldn’t be happier with the progress our girl has made up to this point.
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