"She's not even NEW anymore!"

How do you like the title? It is the quote of the week around here. But before I tell the little story behind the quote I want to start off and say that things are pretty good around here. We are almost to the 3rd Month marker. All my IA friends say that Month 3 is a big milestone. The language starts to come in fast. A lot of the tough transitions are smoothing out. And things are good.

I really can't remember a major meltdown. Yes, we have tiny little incidents but now that the language is coming she is understanding a little more. Sometimes I can tell her that she can have dessert AFTER she eats her dinner. Then she eats her dinner. Sometimes the discipline is just more of "you are the baby, I am the mommy and baby's listen to their mommies." And really, she may be mad but she still follows the directions.

Developmentally speaking, she is behind. We had her evaluated for Occupational Therapy. She tested at 3 years and 11 months old. That is more than a year and a half behind. Almost 2 years. It seems she has a visual processing disorder. She sees her letters, knows what they are, can even make the correct sounds. But she can't write them. Somewhere in her brain the message gets jumbled and she can't get the information to her hand to form the letter. This is not a good thing, we still need to know how to write, despite all the laptops, ipads, email and texting. The school is aware of this too and they will be doing their own testing this week. Today we evaluated whether she needs speech therapy. I really hope they don't find a need since our insurance won't cover it. We will get the results later this week but all indications point to yes. She is still doing a lot of single words and pointing. A lot of her sounds are wrong too.

It makes me really sad for her. I completely blame her delays on the fact that she missed major developmental milestones due to neglect. The government doesn't remove kids from their parents at the age of 6 months for just any old reason. I can't imagine what her life was like with her birth parents. Then she went to live with her aunt, but from what I get from her file, her mother still came and took care of her during the day while the aunt was working. Uhh, hello? Is something wrong here??? I have a strong feeling that Meghan spent the first 2 years of her life sitting in a car seat, stroller, high chair, or bouncy seat. I can almost promise you that she didn't get any tummy time, learn to crawl or have much stimulation. And that makes me so mad. All of her problems could have been avoided. It makes me wish we had gotten her at 6 months, or younger! Or even if we could have brought her home a year ago when we first got her file. But then I remember to be thankful that we got her at 5 instead of 10.

Yesterday we celebrated Chinese New Year with our Families with Chinese Children group. Meghan is the only child who doesn't speak English. The other kids don't even remember their Mandarin. Meghan doesn't really play with the other little girls. I think it is good for her to be with the other Asian kids. She did such a great job at the party. No hugging of strangers, no crying, just a normal kid. But I think I want to observe her at school when she can't see me. I would like to watch her interact with the other kids.

Ok, so back to the quote. Can you guess who said it? Right, of course, Christian. My 7 year old. My darling, sweet 7 year old. Yesterday was baseball tryouts. He went with Meghan and Daddy because I was at a swim meet. The tryouts lasted over an hour (I know- he's 7!). Anyway, after tryouts Christian wanted to stay and hit balls with Daddy. But Tom said that they had to go to get ready for Meghan's party. To which Christian exclaims "MEGHAN???? What Party???" (He had been told numerous times that weekend that there was a CNY party on Sunday). "She ruins EVERYTHING!!! Why do we have to do what she wants? She's not even NEW anymore!" And then his little tirade was over. Tom and I just had to laugh. He was completely over it and back to his old self in about 10 minutes.