Wednesday

Again Gregg and I met with Melissa and talked about how the time had gone since we had been there Tuesday. We talk of parenting ideas and what might work better in certain situations and what is not working so well.

Meikiina met with Jessica and Jessie (intern). On the way there Meikiina commented she loves to come and loves to play with Jessica but she doesn't like it when we are all in the room together. I think she is thinking about things she doesn't want to think about, and it is scary and hard for her. She also told me she doesn't like when she is doing the thing with the glasses on with the music. Jessica told me tonight, tho, that Meikiina really seems to like it. She is pretty sure that she fell asleep during it.

Tonight during story time we told Meikiina the story of how we became a family...how I met Dad and how we got to know each other and how we became a family. We told about how we wanted our family to grow so we adopted her. Melissa had asked us how our family was as we were growing up and suggested that I also talk of that - tell Meikiina how it was to grow up in my family, what kinds of things we did as a family, special times, etc. I told her of how my mom got us up each morning and made sure that we had hot cereal each morning for breakfast and how now I make sure I make Oatmeal for breakfast at least one day on the weekend every week. I told her how my dad used to take us kids on nature walks through the woods and what a good memory that is for me, and how now we go on walks and bike rides on our paths and through our woods so that they can have that memory like I have. I talked of how our family played games Saturday evenings and how we play games in our family. I told her of how after sauna we always had a special treat, a pan of bars (or as Gregg brought up - chocolate oatmeal no bake cookies) or our dad would race last minute to Midway to get ice cream and pop to make floats and how now we make floats or go to McDonald's for an ice cream cone because we are a family and I want them to have memories like I have. She loves stories like that so she really enjoyed her cuddle/story time tonight I think. Always during this time she is doing EMDR. Meikiina calls it the bees.

Tonight Melissa told Meikiina that Jessica might not be there on Friday. Right away Meikiina tensed up and questioned it. Why!? Where will she be? It is very hard for Meikiina to have a change. Melissa knew that so she told her today so that Meikiina could be ready for it.

Today Meikiina brought her baby, Dorothy, and her life book that I created for her. Melissa told her that she has been working there for 13 years and has not seen any child who has a life book. She told Meikiina how lucky she is that she has parents who would go to such work to create something like that for her.

Our cuddle times at home are so good now. Meikiina is excited about them and very ready for them and very receptive of our cuddling and my talking.

At home cuddle time I was talking to Meikiina about how if she had been born to me, as I was feeding her her bottle I would have told her that she is a good baby, such a good baby. Babies are good - all babies are good. No baby is ever a bad baby. She stopped me and said, "But what if I when I was a baby, I would have lifted up my foot and kicked you in the face when you were holding me?". I told her, "Oh, even if you would have kicked me in the face you would not have been a bad baby. Babies are never bad. If a baby did kick their mama in the face it would only mean that the baby was excercising their leg like a baby does." I went on with saying, "How could a tinsy tiny little baby be bad? They are just little tinsy babies and tinsy babies can't do anything wrong or bad." I am more and more convinced that she really does have that feeling that she was a 'bad baby' and that's why her birth parents couldn't keep her.