6 Months...I Can't Believe It

A major milestone- 6 months home!




(picture is old - I have a terrible cold and haven't got my camera out).

I know I don't blog as much as I used to, or as much as I want to. But I don't need to. When Meghan first came home I turned to the blog to vent and put my thoughts and feelings in order. Slowly as Meghan has settled in I feel the need less and less. My blogs are getting boring. I have no incites on time lines or court dates. I don't vent about trauma or attachment. I asked my Dad the other day if he thought Meghan's behaviors were mainly orphanage related or just typical 5 year old behaviors and he said he thought they were just 5 year old behaviors. I agreed.

If you have recently brought your child home and are still struggling with all the ups and downs of international older child adoption- please go back and read my older blogs so that you can see that 6 months ago, even 3 months ago I was Right There With You. In the trenches. And then keep reading and see that time does heal and things will get easier.

Behaviorally, we are still working on learning what is appropriate. She still has the desire to seek out attention from strangers. She loves to be noticed. She pipes into conversations between adults. There are definitely some inappropriate social behaviors that we are still plugging away at. But she knows the rules. In fact, she now tells strangers "don't talk to strangers", and then I tell her that telling the strangers that is the same thing as talking to strangers. And she still throws the occasional wave and a loud "hello" to some random man at the baseball park. Lovely. Our new rule is, if you don't know the person's name you shouldn't wave and say hello. The other day we were walking down her school hallway late after a therapy appointment and another man (obviously a father) was walking by. She immediately waved and said "hello." I bent down to her and said "Do you know his name? Who is that?" And here is the sad part. She said yes she knew him, his name is"Daddy." That is the whole problem. All men are Daddy. Since then we have been hammering into her that she has 1 Daddy and 1 Mommy and our names are not daddy and mommy. Just like her brothers names are not brothers. Her friend Nika has a daddy but his name is not daddy. Her friend Anastasia has a mommy but her name is not Mommy. This is an orphanage behavior/issue. Not understanding what a family is. We no longer speak about people as "so and so's Mommy", it is "Mrs Smith" and "Mr Jones". Hopefully it will sink in soon,

Academically, I believe she has settled down enough to begin to learn in a classroom environment. She is paying attention to her teacher rather than doing her own thing. We will repeat kindergarten, I look at this year as her "practice" year. She was in no means kindergarten ready this year. Next year- I have high hopes. Ok, maybe that's a little optimistic, let's just say I have hopes.





Physically- the girl has grown. She was 38 inches tall when she came home, she is now 44 inches tall. She has to wear shorts under her school uniform jumpers (yes we have uniforms in public school here and I LOVE IT). However, she weighs nearly the same. More ice cream for the child. She can now swing on a swing by herself, swim across a pool, ride a bike (with training wheels), dribble and shoot a basketball, hit a baseball, jump on a trampoline, jump one turn of jump rope, throw a frisbee, and hula hoop. She loves to play outside and is getting very tan already.





Emotionally, she is bonding. She loves cuddle time. She loves to be carried. She loves to be rubbed. She loves to have her hair brushed. She tells us she loves us. She is happy here. She talks about Taiwan favorably and wants us all to go there. We look at pictures of us in Taiwan and she points out Chung Yi and says she liked it there. She says she likes her home here, her room and her toys. She loves her family.





Language- the other day at dinner I was telling her that she needed to eat her meat so she would get big and strong. I told her it would make her hair grow long. She said "Long hair to the booty?" We all burst out laughing. Where did she pick up "booty?" I asked her and she looked at my Dad and said "Papa." We all burst out laughing again. I have never in my life and I am sure I will go to my grave before I hear my dad ever use the term "booty".

So, 6 months into it and things are relatively going well. I am looking forward to this summer. I think she makes way more progress at home than at school. In fact, I almost see a regression after being at school for a few days following a weekend at home. We are doing hooked on phonics and she can muddle her way through a very basic (Very Basic) starter book. I am hoping to have her begining reading by school in August so that she will start off a little ahead. The first time in her life she will ever be ahead. I think that being with the younger kids next year will put her on par emotionally and maturity wise. She still has so many obstacles to overcome. So much to learn developmentally. I keep praying for her to heal and catch up and blossom into her full potential. I can't wait to see what the next 6 months will bring.