Root Cause

After 2 weeks of crazies, baby girl finally had therapy.

She said in the waiting room that she thinks she figured out what was bugging her.  She told us she's really worried that S will never find a family and be stuck in residential a long time.

That sorta rung more true than the multitude of things she said the other day.

She went in therapy and about 35-40 minutes in, we got invited in and she started by telling us that she was sorry for how she behaved. Her therapist asked her to share what was on her mind.  She struggled a little, but told us the same as above.  Her therapist asked her if she'd like help telling us the rest and helped her by asking a few questions.

She said she feels really guilty that she's in a good home and S doesn't even have a family.  She told her therapist that she feels really bad and responsible for them getting separated.  She feels bad that if given the chance to give S her life, she wouldn't, because she wants to keep her life with us.  (her therapist said actually her words were she was crazy about us and loved us alot and that it upsets her when she behaves like this, knowing that it hurts us)

So, the trigger: doing fun things. Once was at her sleepover, once was right after going to see Addams Family on Broadway.  When we do super fun, special things, she feels like she doesn't deserve it and then starts compounding those feelings feeling even worse that she knows S isn't experiencing these normal family things.

I'm so proud of my baby for being able to get this out.  This therapist really knows how to get things out of her and I'm so glad we finally found a decent one. VERY few good ones around here and we had to drive an hour for a year to get just an "okay" one that wouldn't cause more damage than good before finding this one.

I met them at the office for my lunch, so I left to go back to work and the hubster took baby girl back home. He said on the way home that she said she sure was glad she'd finally gotten that out, that she feels better.

Obviously we can't avoid doing fun things.  We asked what we could do to help her. She said "Adopt S".  Oh my!!

We asked her if we needed to do less big activities, but she was dead set against that. She said she loves doing these things and wants to enjoy them and learn not to lash out afterwards and for us to please keep doing fun things.

We'll see after February 27th.  Hubster won tickets for 4 to see Harlem Globetrotters that night.  Our 4th for the night will be baby girls BFF.  They're so excited.

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.