Moving along

Monday will be 4 weeks since we got our little Maya. It's been a hard month to say the least. I do feel as though all of our hard work is starting to pay off though. When we think back to the first week that we got custody of Maya, we think Wow! We've come so far. 6 months seems to be a magical number with International Adoptions. I can just imagine what we'll say in 5 more months. Come talk to us in September.

Maya is starting to become a lot more comfortable in her surroundings. The more comfortable she gets the more she becomes a true toddler. I swear I am so shocked that her first word wasn't "no". I did watch her pretend play by herself the other day. She was babbling something and then I saw it. She started wagging her finger and shaking her head no. I don't know if I can take the credit for that one but I certainly saw myself with each wag of the finger! It was a proud moment. Haha

Things with Maya and Dave are progressing well. We wish the process would move quicker but we're impatient. A friend shared her 16 month old son's Russian adoption story with us and boy was it enlightening. Their son rejected her and attached to the father. Unfortunately, he continued to reject her for almost 6 months. The crazy part is she was his primary caregiver. She was a stay at home mom to a child who did not want anything to do with her. She said it got to a point where she did not even like the child any more. She was being very candid with me and I appreciated her honesty.

Far too often you get people who paint such a rosy picture with International Adoption when in reality, more than often it's just not the case (at least with older children). She said that he did finally come around to her. It happened when she went back to work about 6 months post adoption. She dropped him off at daycare for the first time and he clung to her. She said that was the turning point. From that point on, he was different with her. She said that her son is still more attached to her husband than her but other than that, things were great.

After hearing her story, Dave and I realized that things really could be a lot worse. Maya is not violent, she doesn't harm herself, she listens (for the most part), she's healthy and she's so sweet with Julia. We're very lucky. She likes Dave now but just won't let him hold her. She even shows excitement when he gets home from work. Of course, we're still cheering him like he won the Publisher's Clearing House sweepstakes or something. He loves it! Don't get me wrong, she has her a lot of issues but in the grand scheme of toddler adoption these issues are minor.

She's still sleeping fairly well. She sleeps about 12-13 hours straight at night and one nap during the day. It's great. She sleeps better than Julia. I am still laying down on the floor in her room, only for bedtime. When she falls asleep, I set up my "dummy" and sneak out. It's been working for the last 3 weeks so we'll keep doing it for a bit longer. Maya did wake up in the middle of the night screaming on Monday night. She was very, very hard to console. We're still not really sure what it was (night terror, separation anxiety, afraid of the dark?) She finally fell back asleep at about 4am. I don't know if I mentioned this before but Maya always wakes up weepy. Sometimes she's crying, sometimes she's whimpering. Until this morning. For the first time ever, this morning when I went into her room she was smiling. It was a great sight.

My friend Karen lent me Baby Einstein's Baby First Moves DVD for Julia. I put it on for Maya the other day and she loved it. It's perfect for her really. It's simple English and elementary enough for her to pick up things. She learned how to clap yesterday by watching this DVD (I had to work with her a bit but still). I'm trying to teach her how to wave and there's actually a lesson on the dvd. Perfect. She's really picked up a lot in the past few weeks. She can walk up stairs now (down she's still a bit scared so shimmies down on her butt). She can't jump yet but loves it if I hold her hands and do it for her.

A huge accomplishment is utensils. She is starting to master a spoon! This is really great. She was making such a huge mess at every meal. Ughh. Yogurt was ridiculous. She would get a big spoonful and then turn it towards her mouth and proceed to dump it all over her. It got to a point where I didn't even want to give her a spoon anymore. Let me tell you, she was so mad at me. She pretty much threw a mini tantrum in her booster chair. Of course, then I felt like I couldn't give her the spoon because she'd win! Finally, it dawned on me. What am I doing?? Here I am battling a 2 year old on something that's developmentally good for her. Sheesh. It's hard not to get sucked into the mentality of a toddler sometimes. So yes, after she calmed down and basically forgot about the spoon, I gave it back to her. I guess all that work paid off because last night at dinner, Dave and I both noticed how she's getting so good at maneuvering the spoon. She hardly spilled anything!

Our little girl is making giant steps. Now, if we can just figure out a way for me to leave the house without her for a few hours without traumatizing her we'd be in business.