First trip to the Dentist to get teeth cleaned!
Just a random few thoughts -
Bathtime
For some reason, I can't seem to get the bath water temperature right. It isn't from lack of trying! And I'm not even sure it is an achievable goal, really!
It doesn't seem to matter what temp the water is, she screams it's too something. Then we get in and a moment later she's singing, or playing with Katrina (who is looking for bath toys or socks to play with). I've given up trying to fix it. If I add water, it's a major event. And heaven forbid I actually let water OUT! She figured that out the first night, I think. So, I better hope I get it right the first time!
She'll scream "mee-ouw" and you'd think I was dropping her into a nest of pythons. From experience, now I can tell that she's faking it. (I have to explain that - bu yoa means "I don't want to" in Chinese. She was saying that over and over one day, for no good reason and it came out "meow" and I asked if she was a kitty cat. She burst into laughter and has since thought it extremely funny to say "meow" when she means No.)
So, I have been fairly certain that the bath water isn't hurting her, she just wants to complain about something. And that's the only word she can find at the time.
But when we get out, it's a different story!
She goes stiff as a board, with the towel wrapped around her, breathing in and out through her teeth, huffing and moaning. Then screaming "too cold". I'm sure she is, but she isn't going freeze either! I get her dried off, cream on her skin and dressed as fast as I can.
Which isn't always quickly done - as she runs off the play with the doll. Or has to throw the sock for Katrina (who is now called "Banana Kanana"). Or run out of her room to look over the railing to see who's downstairs (completely naked, mind you). Or pull things out of her bookcase and ask me if they are "Joy's?".
So there again, I'm pretty sure she isn't dying, even though she might sound like it!
Driving While Distracted
I have to say, nothing compares to driving with a kid in a childseat in the back seat! Especially one who is saying, "Ikat Mama!" every 3 seconds. I mean, I can text on my phone and drive safer than this! (Texting only at stop lights, of course!) And eating while driving is a piece of cake, no pun intended! But driving with kids in the back - oh my! That's a whole new experience!
Today, while I was backing out of a parking space, Joy decided to scream at the top of her lungs. I thought I had either killed someone or somehow hurt her! I came to a dead stop, which is not the smartest thing in a parking lot....and once ascertaining that no one was hurt, tried to explain to her why she couldn't ever, ever do that again! I might have raised my voice a bit, for emphasis, I'll admit.
She spent the whole car ride home sulking and I think maybe cursing at me in Chinese. Not sure about it, but it sounded like it! Sorry, sweetie, you can't scream in the car! Or in the dog's ear. Or in Mama's ear. Or in the house. So naturally, that's your favorite thing to do!
Bedtime Stories
I'm trying to establish a routine, but it's hard with her. She wants to play while getting her pajamas on. And I mean run around the room giggling, jump on bed, take things out of the closet and hold them up or throw them somewhere, turn every light on and off a dozen times and then scream while pretending to be scared. Last night, I decided to try to calm her down a little sooner in the process (rather than letting it go on for 30 minutes). She tells me that she's happy. "Joy Happy!" Okay, I guess that makes sense - this is your room and you haven't had a room before. All these things are yours, and you have had to share. There isn't a different caregiver every night with a different routine and way of getting you ready for bed.
So, I'm letting her run around for now. When we get in bed though, I'm really trying to get her settled down. The other night, she got so worked up that I told her I was going to stop reading if she didn't calm down. She didn't, and I stopped. The crocodile tears started. And then they turned into real tears. I think it was a build up of frustration from the day, not really aimed at me. I left her in bed while I started laundry. It was in the next room and she could both hear me and see my shadow.
By the time I got back to her, she was still mad at me, but calmer. We finished our story and then she did what she does every night - she grabbed my hand and wrapped it tightly around herself and fell asleep. She holds on so tightly, I think my hand is going to fall off!
I have learned to position myself next to her so that I can leave without waking her. I also now know to wait till after the twitching stage has started. Well after! Nothing is worse than having her be almost asleep enough when I'm trying to leave!
Being Scared and Rituals
The other day, Joy kept asking to see one specific cartoon over and over. It was the one with the Dinosaur Head. "Lazy Town" is her favorite cartoon and it's really cute! If you haven't seen it, it has an Icelandic Olympic athelete who plays the superhero and uses both puppets and people. There is a lot of gymnastics and dancing and the stories and music are very clever, I think. Anyway, there was one about a camp out and the kids being scared by a fake dinosaur head. She wanted to watch it over and over, and I let her.
I thought that if she asked for it, there was a reason.
After watching it about 6 times in a row, she asked about our flashlight. We had taken the batteries out of it to make the Light Bright work and it was still sitting on the counter waiting for new batteries. I had them, just hadn't put them in yet. So we did that and then she wanted to turn off all the lights in the house and play with the flashlight. She was pretending to be scared, screaming and giggling and shining the flashlight here and there.
You can imagine what the dogs thought of all that!
I didn't mind at first, but then I thought about what it must look like from outside! So I made her turn on a few lights, saying that Daddy needed some lights on when he came home. I could just see trying to explain to a friendly concerned policeman that my newly adopted daughter was trying to figure out how not to be scared in the dark by shining the flashlight in the dark....
She has also had a ritual at bedtime in her room of turning all the lights off and then turning the lamps back on, one by one. There is enough light from the street light to see in the room with the lights off, so it isn't pitch black. She tells me that she isn't scared and I tell her how brave she is.
But she has woken up the last few nights being scared. I don't know what she's been dreaming, but it has upset her. I'm pretty sure she knows it isn't real, and she goes back to sleep pretty easily. It may just be that Mama's side of the bed is pretty warm and snuggly too! (Mama, though, has learned to get her blanket so that she is covered up and Mama doesn't roast to death!)
English and German
Tim and I are going to have to brush up on our German! We are already spelling certain words that she knows, but pretty soon, we're going to need our own language.
She is really communicating well. It's fun to watch it happen too. At first there were just nouns and hand gestures. I figured out that hands moving up and then down with the "swoosh" sound effect means get dressed. And the new one today was she stands frozen with one hand up in the air and the other pointing down. Took me a while to figure that one out - means, please freeze the tv so that it stops playing while I show you something.
"H1N1" can mean anything from "let's play pretend" to "I'm tired of this game". She got her last H1N1 shot right before we got her.
And her favorite word today is "Perfect!!!!" which she heard on a cartoon. When she finds the right word for something, or when she gets the food she wants or the dog does something she likes, "Perfect!!!" comes out of her!
"French-U Fries-uh" was a little harder. Sounds like it would have been easy, but the U sound kept throwing us. Then all of a sudden, I guessed french fries? Yup, her favorite food.
Now, though, there are concepts behind the nouns and a few verbs thrown in. I even get an article or two here and there! Tonight I found out that her foster mama (she has a Chinese word for her, and I recognized it, then pointed to her picture in the book just to make sure I was right, since the story went on for a while) had a dog. And the building they lived in was BIG and had 5 dogs in it. There were lots of families in the building. None were as big as Scarpia (we were looking at Scarpia's puppy pictures), and she called them all hers. Wow!
I also heard tonight that "Joy many shots" and "Joy not scared, Joy not baby, whaaaa! Cool, huh?"
Yes, sweetie, way cool!
:)
So much for the babbling stage lasting 3 months!
