On Friday it will be six weeks that we have been home with Little Miss. 6 weeks, 6 eons, same thing right? This is what our attachment looks like so far:
Little Miss to Andrew: She has definitely made progress in her attachment toward Andrew. She was the child who summarily rejected one parent instantly and left the other parent to do it all for the entire trip and all the way back home. At home she still has a definite preference for me, but it's lessening. When other people are around however she is fast to reject him. Our social worker said that it is 'more natural' for babies/children to attach to one primary caregiver at a time and while she's attaching to me that means a certain degree of distance from Andrew. When she starts to work on her attachment to him then it could mean a certain amount of detachment from me. She still refers to him as "mommy" a lot of the time. She can say "daddy" and "papa" which is what she came home saying, but for whatever reason still calls him mommy... She does recognize him (when she wants to) and will react happily (or not) to seeing him depending on her mood. If you ask her, "Where is daddy?" She is more likely now to point to him than she was even two weeks ago. She still doesn't have any concept of "daddy" that is similar to what the boys have. When I am not available now she will (within a few minutes) readily accept Andrew as her primary caregiver whereas initially this would have resulted in endless screaming.
Andrew to Little Miss: Attachment IS a two-way process and I don't want to underestimate the importance of that. It's hard to attach to someone who only reluctantly wants to be with you and so Andrew has been going uphill. He has however been a total rockstar in his responses to her reluctance. He cherishes the moments when she is sweet with him and understand the times when she is not. Andrew has been my "ray of sunshine" (though he would HATE that title) when all I can see is the darkness around us and he is the one who keeps telling me that
will get through this and we
will make it to the other side in time.
Little Miss to Me: She is attaching to me, but slowly. I guess it's s slow process in general. Our attachment therapist said that she is still within the realm of "normal" for the length of time that we've been home. At home when new people come into the house (which we are still seriously limiting) or at therapy she is initially shy, scared, and withdrawn. She wants me to hold her, she looks scared, and she doesn't respond to or verbalize to them.
She warms up in about ten minutes and then switches to the other extreme of wanting the other person to hold her, interact with her, be impressed by her, etc. She is the consummate performer. It also helps (her cause anyway) that she is adorable. Within a few minutes of meeting our therapist she was content to leave the room with her and stay gone for about ten minutes. It wasn't even that she showed any signs of anxiety at that point, but the therapist was ready to end the experiment. When Little Miss came back tot he room she did light up when she saw us still there waiting for her. And some of her attraction to the therapist died down and she would choose to sit on my lap and interact with me on and off the rest of the time we were there. She still wanted to be held by the therapist. She would take candy from Andrew, but wouldn't sit on his lap. There were a few times when she would look at me and then throw something that I gave her, which was a pretty clear signal...or we would interact with her and get a dirty look, rude vocalization, and a cold shoulder.
At the end of the appointment when she was saying goodbye to the therapist she had us go and stand at the doorway, which Little Miss did not like. She looked at us for a second and then grunted in a displeased fashion at us and raised her arms toward me. I, obviously, went right away and got her. After seeing how little/not at all she missed me when she was "gone" it was nice to see that she did understand I was of some use to her and shouldn't be leaving without her.
In stores, on the rare trip that she goes out, she will engage with me and be fun and loving for a time, but if a stranger starts to pay attention to her then she will kick me to the curb in a heartbeat. When I try to interject myself between Little Miss and the stranger she gives me a very appraising look and then makes the judgment (50-50 still) about whether or not she'll pay attention to me or if the stranger wins out.
She does call me "mommy" and can recognize my face in pictures and I usually get a positive facial reaction from her when she sees me. (The exception to that is when she wakes up in the morning or from naptime when she is generally just annoyed that she's still here.) She knows that my "name" is mommy, but doesn't understand my role at all and sees me as interchangeable with another adult woman.
Me to Little Miss: Well, we know this is a dicey matter. I'm doing better. The panic of the first two weeks is mostly gone. It was replaced with a resoluteness for awhile that faded into a brief stint of hopelessness and is currently on an upswing as I keep trying to find practical ways to get us all through the day. I enjoy Little Miss (usually) more when we have 1:1 time, but unfortunately that 1:1 time ends and it results in horrific tantrums so it's in kind of a hiatus right now, sort of. I would say that my attachment to her is still in a neutral position with flashes of positive, but bursts of negativity.
This is the hardest thing I have ever done. I could talk for post after post about this, but for now a paragraph will have to do.
Little Miss and Peanut: (ages two and three and a half) are okay together. Their personalities are very opposite, but under the best of circumstances they can play together well and have some good times. Under less than ideal circumstances it's a lot of struggles to get them to coexist. At this point I think part of their struggle is that Peanut is just significantly more verbally advanced than Little Miss is and their playing styles don't mix well. He's working on teaching her things and we're trying to encourage that role for him. I do think in time there is a
lot of possibility for a very solid friendship, we aren't there yet. She can say his name, but doesn't use it very often without prompting. There's enough difference between their ages, personalities, and abilities that each uses the other as a convenient target for their unpleasantness. I think that Peanut has more interest in her, but he's easily overwhelmed by her and isn't quite sure how to interact with her in a way that she understands, relates to, and can reciprocate. It's complicated between them, for sure. They are times when they 'click' and it's a wonderful thing to see and they're able to have a lot of fun together and both have their needs met in positive ways.
Little Miss and Pickle (ages two and eighteen months) are thick as thieves. Their personalities are more similar and where they're not the same they're compatible. Their style of play and their attention span are pretty close together and while they don't "play together" much they do parallel play pretty well. They jabber together without either of them making much sense. I would say they have about the same number of spoken/signed words, but Pickle clearly has the upper hand in comprehension. Little Miss clearly sees herself as bigger than Pickle and likes to assume a caretaker role of him which is very cute to see. "Pickle" was one of her first intelligible English words and is probably the most frequently used too. (On a related note: Pickle might as well be our family pet because he is just
THAT loveable and adorable and he is completely loved and adored by everyone. The child is 100% doted on by all of us. It would probably be best for him to not remain the baby of the family forever...) On the other hand, I think that she is more interested in Pickle than he is in her. He definitely likes her and enjoys being with her, but she is more likely to seek him out and has more of a reaction to him than he has to her. They are also the biggest competitors for the same resource: being held. There is never an end to the screaming when one of them notices that the other is being held. Little Miss is more 'guilty' of this than he is, but he does it too. It's a continual source of stress, tears, and guilt for everyone.
Pickle & Peanut: My sweet boys are still good together. Pickle still smiles and laughs at his brother and Peanut still dotes on Pickle. They don't spend quite as much time together as before because it's easier to separate Peanut and let him do something for 'big boys' and keep the babies together. I still try to encourage them to spend time playing together, but just like Peanut and Little Miss are at different stages Pickle and Peanut are at different stages too. I think that more of their brotherhood will come back as Pickle gets just a little bit older and Peanut starts to deal with all of these changes a little more smoothly.
Parents to Peanut: Peanut is struggling with all of these changes. We expected this. The first two weeks we thought we had gotten off easy (in that regard), but then it started escalating. He's definitely regressed behaviorally and is showing a lot more of behaviors that we thought we had put behind us. We're also seeing some aggression from him, which is absolutely unlike him. We're trying to make sure that he gets plenty of time by himself, time spent with each of us and lots of understanding. It's really really hard to tell where we need to be making exceptions for him and where we need to be holding him to standards. It's really really really hard to see him struggling and he is constantly on my mind these days as I try to meet his needs and set him up to succeed. He has times when he is just phenomenal and is absolutely "on" and he's got everything going for him: good looks, sweetness, big heart, compassion, thoughtfulness, great manners, the whole package wrapped up in a skinny little body and I just wonder how can he be so wonderful. And then there are moments were I can see him hurting and it breaks my heart.
Parents to Pickle: This goober is great. He was really sick for awhile and lost about five pounds, but we're mostly in the clear. He's testing negative for giardia still, but still has "symptoms" of giardia. Blech. It's hard to balance his need and his habit of being held with encouraging him to be "big" and make room for Little Miss. He still is our baby and he isn't even two yet, he really is a baby. Luckily, he's very easygoing and I think he's been the least affected by everything. We have seen an increase in tantrums (and a little hitting), but it's all still very age-appropriate and not too hard to deal with. The hardest thing is just trying to meet his needs while still balancing the needs of the other kids too.
All this is not to say that we're "judging" her attachment toward us or ours toward her, but I just wanted to share a general picture of what things are like almost 6 weeks out. We have seen some improvements, but it's really hard to see your child prefer someone else over you. It's difficult to deal with the hot and then cold aspect of attachment and wondering if I'm doing this right or that right. I'm judging everything through the lens of 'am I doing permanent attachment damage through this action'? It's horrible and ugly and lonely to not feel what you expect or are expected to feel for your child, to look at your family and distinguish between biological and adopted and wonder when that will stop and pray that it's soon. It's tough to balance the needs of this many young children. It's hard to maintain an individual relationship with each of them and encourage them each in their relationships with each other. It's all exhausting.
And we have it way easier than she does because while one thing in our lives has changed and we're all struggling with that...EVERYTHING in her life has changed. When it's hard, when we're struggling with her struggles we really try to remember that she is the one who has lost the most and who we're asking the most of out of.
It's just so much. Adoption is so much. Mostly, I'm past thinking it's "too much", but it is just SO MUCH.
