The Honeymoon

Everybody constantly talks about the "honeymoon period".  It's almost annoying how much the honeymoon is discussed. I find myself talking about how much I love our little girl and invariably, anybody that has experience with adoption says "You're still in your honeymoon period", as if that's going to change how much I love her.

I can say with certainty that I love my baby regardless.

Yesterday we had our first FAPT and VEMAT meeting.  It was determined that the honeymoon is actually over and that they consider her conditions pretty severe. It's actually reassuring to me because based on her behaviors, that she's being her and that even if things were never to get better, we'd totally always be hopelessly in love with this girl.

That said, totally need to work on some things. Calling another child at "molerat" at school, asking a teacher if she could bite her when she was mad, having complete meltdowns over homework or having to go to school in bad weather (storms are a major trigger), food binging at night, sleeping in clothes, bad grades, bedwetting 2-3 times a week and serious focus issues.  Some of these are just minor things that I note but don't "worry" about (ie, bedwetting is not a big deal, just a symptom of the need behind the behavior), but I want my baby to do well, both socially and academically, in school, so we have some work to do and I'm looking forward to seeing her progress into the sweet young lady she is.  She truly has a heart of gold, and she needs to know this is forever. 

The incident at school happened Tuesday. Wednesday as we went to meet with her social worker, our baby started crying and begged me not to tell what happened and changed her feelings chart on the fridge to sad.  I asked her why she was so stressed over us telling and she cried and said she was worried they'd take her away from me.  We assured her 1) that calling kids names and threatening to bite a teacher wasn't acceptable, but it also wasn't a reason for DSS to remove her from our care and 2) we wouldn't let somebody take her away over something like that.

Despite a zillion conversations about it and lots of hugs nd kisses, I don't think she believed us that she was coming back home with us because she packed about 15 baby dolls for the trip and her bag of coping skills, lifebook and photos.  She was such a happy girl yesterday afternoon when we got home and so loving (even more than normal and she's a loving child on a normal day). 

Good times or bad, we're in this together and I adore her.  I think we're handling her issues pretty well and starting to connect.  More on our attachment interventions later.