Tuesday

Tonight the evening was laid out the same as the others. Melissa met with Gregg and me, while Jessica met with Meikiina.

Jessica writes an assessment of her observations regarding how Meikiina is during their time together, and we got to read through some of the assessment from her. It was actually very Meikiina. It was similar to what I hear about her from school. She's a lovely, polite, pleasing little girl. And she is. She works very, very hard in school to be like that - to be how she thinks she should be. But that is so hard on her - to work so hard to be 'good' that it causes extreme anxiety in her. Jessica says she is very polite and very much wants to please. She very graciously loses at games she plays with Jessica. Games is a very big concern for me. I get the feeling when she is playing games that to her they are not just games. If she loses a game she has a really hard time with it. But I always get the feeling that to her she's not losing a game, she's losing something much bigger.

They also did an assessment where Jessica started a sentence and Meikiina finished it. They were very typical Meikiina - nothing very surprising. One funny one - When I was a baby, I was...like a bowling ball. Gregg always tells her that when she was little she was so round and chubby that she was like a bowling ball.

Each time she is with Jessica she puts on these glasses and there are these flashing lights. As she's doing the glasses, she listens to music. I have to do more research on what these are and what they do. Something about the brain.

During our group time today we told Meikiina's adoption story. We told about how we came to decide that we would like to adopt a child and a bit about the adoption process.

Monday

Although she was anxious about it, Meikiina was excited all weekend to go back to see Jessica. She enjoyed her play time with her on Thursday. She kept on asking if she gets to play with Jessica again and I would tell her that I know for sure each time we go she will get to have play time.

Tonight while Meikiina was with Jessica, Gregg and I met with Melissa and talked about how the weekend went. I gave her a rundown of how the cuddle times had gone and how she was not receptive at all of a cuddle time at first, but was more and more receptive each one and by the end of the weekend she even seemed to enjoy it, although it kind of felt like she was feeling that she shouldn't let on to me that she enjoyed it.

We also talked about what we will do this evening in our group time. We decided to do more nurture time - talk alot of how we would have cared for her if she had been born to us. She was sitting with Gregg and he was talking to her and she was real stiff and not wanting to cuddle and I brought up Rascal. As soon as I started talking she sat up and moved over into my lap and cuddled down and just watched me. I started talking about how Rascal would have felt about us getting ready for our baby to be born if she had been born to us, how he would have acted as we were bringing things into the house to prepare for her arrival. I talked about how he would have acted when we would have brought her home and she was a tiny baby, how he would have stood on his hind legs and looked into the crib and mewed what a good baby she is. I talked about how he would have liked to be in the room that she was in when she was real tiny and how he would have followed her around as she started moving. She just loved that. Rascal was a big hit!

Being as I'm leaving by 6:00 in the morning and then won't be getting home til late I won't have much time to work with her during the week, but will do what I can. We got home about 9:30 and had homework. My most important homework today was to have cuddle time with Meikiina. So we did cuddle and I read to her, and sang to her, and I talked to her about how I would have done these things with her if she had been born to us. And now...on to the next one.

Weekend Cuddle Time

I am really hesitant about publishing this post. There is such personal information and it scares me a little that it could get back to Meikiina that I have 'shared' some of this. But for anyone to fully understand what the 2 week intensive is about it needs to be included. I may be criticized or at the least have eyes rolled about this, because I know it is hard to comprehend how this could help her. But I really want to do what I can to help my child heal and be able to grow into the best person she can be. Trust me, I have done hundreds (truly) of hours of research on my children and adoption and institutional living, etc. I need to do what I think is best for them and this is where I believe I need to go.

A little story. I have looked at this center in Deephaven for several years and have wished that I could bring Meikiina there for testing. My insurance hasn't covered it and as much as I would have loved to bring her there, I just couldn't afford with only my income, to pay for this out of my pocket. This year my insurance changed at work and now this center is covered by my insurance. It was an answer to many prayers.

Our homework for the weekend was to do cuddle time with Meikiina. On Friday Gregg told me Meikiina would not cuddle with him. She did not want to cuddle with me either. I didn't push it too hard, but I said matter of factly that it would be too bad if we didn't get to see the parade on Saturday cuz we weren't done with our Friday night and Saturday morning cuddles. She said we could cuddle in the morning and I said we could but we probably wouldn't be done by the time the parade started. She decided that we would cuddle.

Let me say, Meikiina does like to cuddle, but in the past it has always been in her control. If she wants to cuddle we can cuddle, if I want to initiate a cuddle it's not always accepted by her. There is a 'reason' for this, which I do understand with all the reading and research I've done. It probably sounds really far-fetched to someone who is not so familiar with adoption and the issues associated with adoption. She has been 'abandoned' too many times in her life. She is too scared to let someone love her. In her mind - when someone loves her they leave her. She 'needs' control of everything in her life. With control, comes safety and survival. And besides it just hurts too much to love/be loved and then be left.

On Thursday she did very well in our cuddle time at the center. Friday evening when we did cuddle, she was very 'detached' from me as I was holding her. She didn't want to be close. I asked her why and she said she doesn't need cuddles. I started playing with her nose and doing funny little things and she relaxed a bit into me. I was talking about how much I would have cuddled her when she was a tiny baby just born. She asked me, "Mom - what if when you were holding me when I was your baby someone came up and said to me (to Meikiina), 'What is zero minus zero?' and I didn't know, and then they said, 'Your baby is stupid!'" I told her, "I would have told them, "My baby is not stupid!'" I went on, "Little babies can't be stupid. How could they be? They are just little tiny babies and little babies can't ever do anything wrong, cuz they are just little tiny babies."

My gosh, my heart just cried for her. I've read and heard a lot that adoptees often wonder 'what is wrong with them' that they were not kept by their first family. Were they a bad baby, a stupid baby? Meikiina is one that has kept her thoughts inside her. She doesn't want to talk about 'before' this family.

Saturday she reluctantly let me cuddle her in the evening but then seemed to relax into me a bit more and accept it. On Sunday I told her that we need to do 3 cuddles as we only did one on Saturday and she really did not want to. When I said, "How about we do a bottle? Mom can feed you a bottle when we cuddle." She said, "Yes, we can do that. And how about we go buy some tuttis (sp?) and when I cry Dad can give me a tutti." I told her I thought that was a great idea. So in the afternoon we had a bottle/cuddle time and she just cuddled right into me and I talked and talked to her about how I would have taken care of her if she was mine when she was a tiny baby. Dad took Meikiina to the store to pick out some tuttis. Then in the evening I once more did a bottle/cuddle time with her and she turned into my baby. When she was done with her bottle, I gave her the tutti and kept cuddling her and told her again everything I would have done for her if she would have been mine from the beginning - I would have fed her and burped her and rocked and sang to her. I told her I would have never left her by herself and would have always come back for her.

The idea of cuddle time is to get her back to the time that she missed with us. This is not to try to change her story, but to fill in spots that were not filled for her in her infancy. This is to give her what we would have given her if she would have been born to us.

Because of all the research I have done, even starting before she was here, I did know a lot of things to watch for and things I could do to help her. I'm thankful that I did, because I have worked so hard, and I think that I really have helped her. Melissa said that Meikiina is mild compared to most of the kids she has seen, without prior work she could have oh, so much bigger issues. I'm thankful for that and thankful for what little knowledge and insight I had to do the hard work I have done with Meikiina thus far. Now there is more hard work to be done and we will do it and celebrate victories along the way.

Interesting evening

I have been concerned for some time about Meikiina's anxiety level. I just want to cry for her she is so anxious at times. We met with a therapist at the 'Family Attachment and Counseling Center' in Deephaven some months back to see if she thought we would benefit from us coming there with Meikiina. She sent a packet of paperwork and I filled it out and sent it back. She suggested that we do a 2 week 'intensive therapy' session where we all work together and they work with Meikiina to see what they come up with to try help her. Last night we started our 2 week long 'intensive' for Meikiina.

Our first activity of the evening Gregg, Meikiina, and I were in a room where they could see us by video. Gregg and I knew we were being taped (and watched), but Meikiina did not. We were given activity cards where the care givers read the cards and then we did the activity. Some of the activities were - caregiver read a book to child, caregiver build a simple structure with legos and child copy the structure, caregiver lotion child and child lotion caregiver, play thumb wrestling, caregiver draw a picture and child copy it, caregiver feed a snack to child and child feed a snack to caregiver, caregiver teach something new to child. When the lead therapist, Melissa, came to get us she asked Meikiina what she thought was Gregg's favorite activity and what mine was. She picked correctly. And we also guessed what we thought Meikiina's favorite activity was.

When we were done with the activities Melissa took Gregg and me into a room and Meikiina went into another room with a play therapist. Melissa went over the report she had done up from the paperwork I had done before we started the program. They were looking for things like reactive attachment disorder (RAD), anxiety, depression and other things. The only thing she tested 'clinical' in was anxiety. She tested high in both internalizing her anxiety and externalizing her anxiety. She didn't test high enough in anything else that they could even get approved (by insurance?) to work with her. So they will be working to see what they can do to help her with her anxiety. What Gregg taught her in the activity (mentioned above) was what squared means. She picked it up really quickly. Melissa said they had picked up watching her that she could be a perfectionist, and that she is quite smart (quick). She couldn't believe that she could pick up the concept of squared that quickly. One of the reasons I'm so concerned about her is that I've thought that she is quite smart, but she struggles so sooooo hard in school, especially with math and reading. When I'm with her in the classroom I can see and feel the anxiety in her. It's like she can't process things in school. Since she started school and has been doing spelling tests, she has only gotten about 5 to 7 words wrong on all the tests she's taken in 3 years. But she struggles in school to read out loud. Melissa agrees that there's something that doesn't make sense. Also, every report we get from school, says she is so good, polite, works hard, compassionate, friendly. Then when she comes home from school it all wants to come out. There are days she rages! She works really really hard to do everything right and do what she needs to do in school and then it needs to come out.

In play therapy they watch her play and can figure out lots of things by how she plays and what she plays with. She really enjoyed this too, playing with Jessica. Melissa said Jessica is especially good in picking out trouble spots in a child.

Melissa, the therapist, says that the school must be made to understand how different learning is for Meikiina in school vs. in a home or relaxed environment. She is going to let Meikiina get real comfortable with the play therapist and then will have her do an IQ test on her. She says these aren't always accurate, but she's hoping she can then use it as a tool to help Meikiina in the school setting.

The last thing we did was a narrative therapy session. I held Meikiina while I told her what I would have done with her and for her if she had been my baby from the very beginning. While I was holding her she also was doing EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing). She holds these tube things in her hands. They buzz in her hands at alternating times - one buzzes and then the other one buzzes.

I won't talk too much about what we will be doing. I will try to keep updated here as we are going through the sessions.

Garden update

Here are a couple pictures of the garden. I don't know what happened with the peas and beans. About 1/3 of the row of peas did not come up. I noticed birds were really pecking away in it soon after we planted it and I am wondering if they pecked out a lot of seeds. We also planted 2 seeds in each hole and not one came up with 2 plants. Each place a plant came up, only one plant came up, not two. The beans were like that too. Gregg did replant some in each row, and a few new plants are coming, but still not as many as he planted. Hmmmm... Well, whatever comes up will be fun. We will learn each year. I am so happy that we got a garden started. Our other little garden does have watermelon plants just coming up today too. We should get a harvest as these watermelons said 70 days from planting to harvest. We'll see.

We did have to put wire around it as the rabbits were loving the pepper plants, and were nipping leaves off the first day after they were planted.

Parties, picnics, and bike rides...

June has been birthday parties, well only 2 so far, but...

My supervisor is of Japanese and Brazilian decent and we talk together about our kids a lot. Her son, Matteus turned 6 in June and she invited the girls to his birthday party on June 6th. He had his party at a place called 'My Gym' so of course the girls had a great time. It was organized play so it wasn't like they got to be too wild or anything, but they did have fun. Of course the pinata was a big hit too, well the candy in it. She was pleased that we came and Matteus loved the gift that Meikiina picked out for him. I can't ever remember what they are called, but little boys that age love them. No good pictures from this party. I took the camera, but both sets of batteries I had with died.

This weekend Meikiina was invited to a birthday party at Chucky Cheese for a neighbor boy. She rode over with her friend from across the street and her mom. She loves to go to Chucky Cheese, had a great time using up her tokens, and came home with a little prize that she was more than pleased with.

When she got home from Chucky Cheese we went to a FCC (Families with Children from China) picnic at the most fun park. It is always fun to get together with other families with Chinese children. The girls had fun playing with the other kids on the playground and then on a most fun looking slash pad. We didn't get there too early so didn't get to spend too much time with the other families, but it was fun anyway. The girls did not want to leave and we were there long after everyone else was gone.

Here Brynlee was hitting Meikiina as often as she could, but howled if Meikiina hit her!

She hates getting her face wet in the shower, but went under these buckets many times!

Brrrr..... So cold!

On Sunday we went bike riding, the girls and I. As we were biking past the lake, which was quite active with boats and jet skiis, Brynlee got real excited and said, "Look mom, there's someone ice skiing (water skiing) behind that boat. We stood there for quite awhile and watched the 'ice skiing' on the water. On our way home we went through the park and stopped to play for a bit, as we do quite often.

Busy, busy, busy

I've had so many things I've wanted to put on here and haven't had a minute to sit and put down a thought. I've been so busy with year end at work, with long days and at work late for the last 2 weeks. I'm sure I won't remember anything I've been wanting to get down.

It's so hard on us when I have the long days and I literally don't get to see the girls for days at a time. It's especially hard on Meikiina. Deep inside her she's still so scared that she will lose another family. She's been very good about my being gone, but calls me at bedtime and I can hear the loneliness and fear in her voice, even as she's being so brave about it. She had her last day of school on June 4th. I hadn't seen the girls from Sunday when I put them to bed until I got home from work (late, but before they fell asleep) on Wednesday. They were beyond excited to see me when I got home that day. The next morning I stayed home until Meikiina got on the bus for her last day of school. She was so happy that I stayed and saw her off to school. Here's a picture of her and her best neighborhood friend going off to the bus on the last day of school. She wasn't real excited about being done with school. She said she will miss seeing her friends. But I think she's enjoying being home. She's having fun and seems so much more relaxed already.


During Meikiina's last week of school Brynlee went fishing with Gregg. She caught her first fish, and second, and third, and all the way up to 21 fish between the two of them. I asked Gregg to bring the camera with them in case they caught anything. Here's Brynlee with one of her big catches.

Ever since I've moved into my house I've wanted a garden. This year we finally decided we will have a garden. Gregg wanted a boxed in garden so we discussed how we would do it and kept talking about we need to get the lumber to build the boxes, but never got it done all spring. Some neighbors have been building and had a pile of lumber in their yard for many weeks and I kept on telling Gregg that he should ask if they are getting rid of it and he went a couple of times and no one was home. Finally one day I saw them loading it up to bring away and told Gregg to go ask what they are doing with it. Most of it they were bring back to the store for a refund, but there were these 2 - 2"x12"x26' boards that they said they couldn't bring back and did we want them for $20. He told us that he had paid $75 each for them. We didn't know for sure if we believed him but we thought $20 was a good enough deal and we took them. A few days later the guy who fixed our house after the last hail storm stopped by and asked us why we had them and Gregg told him the story. He told us they are worth about $150. So we had our boards for our boxes.

Then I started bugging Gregg about dirt - call and price dirt, call and price dirt. He finally called a couple of places and we decided we would get dirt from the same place that I had bought the black dirt for my yard when I moved in and we would get it as soon as we got back from memorial day weekend. As soon as we drove in the driveway from our camping weekend our next door neighbor came out and brought us our mail and asked us if we want some black dirt for free. His next door neighbor had done some yard work and needed to get rid of the rest of the black dirt. So Gregg hauled over the black dirt and we built the box for the back yard and we had a garden spot. Now we've planted it and the plants are starting to come up. I'm so excited. Here's a picture a few days after we planted it and you can see the lettuce coming up already in this picture. Now all the plants are coming up. We just finished putting in another box on the side of the house, but I'm not sure if it's too late to plant stuff in that one.


One more topic. Gregg is a shopper and he loves garage saling so they usually hit a few garage sales a week. Meikiina is a shoe girl. She loves, loves!, shoes - especially high heeled shoes. She always wants me to buy her high heeled shoes and she wants me to wear high heels. She called me at work one day when they got back from a bunch of real good garage sales and told me all the treasures she had found. Then she told me about how she found these high heels that she figured would fit me and she told me she really wanted to get them for me. Oh, how she wanted to buy them for me. She told me that she thought they would look so nice on me, but that I would put them and she could just imagine me going up the stairs and just waddling like a duck. Yeah, they were nice, but she was just scared that I would just waddle, waddle like a duck. I was laughing so hard at work, and trying not to let her know I was laughing. Honestly, she wasn't saying it to be mean, because I know that she wouldn't have a clue that it could be a mean thing to say. She was so sincere. She always want to buy thing for me and gives me all kinds of little treasures to take to work so that when I look at it I can think of her and know that she loves me. Who knows. I just got a good laugh and I'm laughing again as I type this.

At the end of the conversation Meikiina says to me, "Oh, and Mom! You have to talk to Brynlee!" I asked her what about. She told me about a comment made by Brynlee. They are at a garage sale that apparently didn't have a lot of stuff that Brynlee was interested in and so she announced very loudly, "What a bogus garage sale!" Meikiina told me that the lady looked at them and had a sad look on her face. But the comment is very Brynlee style. I don't have a clue where she heard the word 'bogus' but I think maybe she was trying out the word. We talked to her and tried to tell her that that is a very hurtful comment and that you can't say something like that in front of someone. You don't have to like the garage sale, but you don't say anything about it when you are at the garage sale. When you go and get in the car then maybe you can say something , but it's not ok to say something that will hurt someone's feelings - not even garage sale people.