Waiting for Hari

Day 1 at home

Julia had a great first day at home -- melted down only three times and only once was intense and that was at bed time. Transitions between activities were the trigger point each time. We kept her busy today and she kept us busy. I swear that every so often she looked to us to see if we were going to be moving, traveling, or relocating her. She offered a few hugs. Cried when David went to do food shopping and later when he went to fill her bike tires with air. She was overjoyed when he came back.

I am a little concerned about food. She does not communicate that she is hungry – and she is capable of telling us of her needs, bathroom needs for example. I offered her food 5 times during the day. I really needs to do some work and research about what to feed her. Today, she ate two hard boiled eggs, a cup of noodles, popcorn, a few corn chips, an apple, two bananas, tomatoes, red peppers, carrots, egg noodles. She drank apple juice and milk. She rejected oatmeal and chicken.

Julia is carrying around her stuffed dog (thank you, Debbie and the Chicago pro se crew!), and knows the difference between her stuffed toys – bear, dog, and dog. And she played quietly with duplo (thank you, Marcia and Matthew) which feels pretty amazing because she has not done much quietly. Julia and I went outside and pulled weeds for about an hour. She was very interested in weeding – okay, pulling plants out of the ground, but I have lots of weeds right now – and digging.

Julia is still trying valiantly to get us to understand her. We were able to connect the Chinese and English for dog, apple, airplane, and go. She continues to make believe – giving me a ball and telling me to take a taste of the "apple," using duplo pieces put together in an "L" shape to give us and her stuffed dog "shots" and also used the same duplo shape as a gun, I think. When she gave the dog shots, she had me hold the dog, pet it, put a finger on the shot place, and also pat its back and say "don’t cry" in Chinese.

She met our Latkah and Latkah’s favorite person, Jeannette, when Jet brought our last family member home. Julia needs to learn how to be gentle with the real dog. She was slightly joyfully manic which I think is her reaction to fearful new things. It was just a pale reflection of her gotcha day reaction, but I see similarities. Julia was friendly to Jeannette, sharing her toy dog and being charming.

Now to bed for me.

Pictures, pictures, pictures – I will post them soon.

posted by Suz @ 1:19 AM