Adjusting

Olivia will literally turn her back to me
I don't know who loves who more
Tea in Bed! She has these boys doing her bidding. Yesterday Olivia was trying to play with Jackson. Joe said "Olivia wants to play". Jackson said "No, she want's to push me down" to which Joe replied quite loudly "Well, Let Her!". These are the same two boys who wouldn't go NEAR the "pink" bed before Olivia came home.
Well, this is one way to get long hair

Today was a better day. I think I know where we made our first mistake. The first morning home, Olivia woke up very early and Blake, knowing how tired I was, decided to let me sleep in. He took Olivia downstairs and fed her breakfast and they spent about an hour playing and having a grand time. When I came down, Olivia took one look at me and turned her back to me. She was very upset. It went downhill from there. We know better than to hand off the caregiving to anyone other than mom. We just weren't thinking. I wonder if Olivia thought I had gone away. She obviously thought "something". So, we immedietley went back to only me meeting her needs. I do the feeding, bathing, changing, disciplining, putting in the car, etc....Everyone else just plays with her. She is eating it up, which is good. But she is taking all of her fears, anger, and confusion out on the one she is closest to...Mommy. She basically won't have anything to do with me unless it is to get something she wants. Each day is getting better though, just like it did in China. Tomorrow the boys go back to school. I think that will help tremendously. The whole bonding thing has been very hard for Ben to understand. He wants to hold her all the time and thinks that what we are doing is stupid. (remember he's 17!) It does sound odd to someone who is not a parent or has not adopted before.

Bonding is much more than learning to love each other. It is learning to trust as well. When you give birth the mother meets every need of her baby and in turn the baby learns to trust her mother. The same thing has to happen when you adopt, no matter what the age. When you allow others to "help" you meet those needs, it delays the full bonding between mother and child. This is the reason I was glad that Olivia was still taking a bottle, so I could hold her close and feed her. Unfortunatley she stopped taking it while we were still in China.

Tomorrow I'm going to put her in the sling. I think that should help too. She did so well in China that it was almost inevitable that she go through this once she got home. Blake goes back to work on Tuesday and Olivia and I will settle into our daily routine. She will have nobody else to turn to but me. It breaks my heart for her to know that she trusted me once but not anymore. How difficult this must be for her and how scary! I'm glad that she has her brothers to play with because she does love them!!!

This will be my last post on this blog for a while. I will return to posting on our regular blog, Somewhere In The Sun. If you'd like to see how she's doing you can have an email sent to you when the blog is updated. Then you just click on the link to go to the blog. You can sign up at Blogarithm. (Thanks Lori for this tip. It's a great timesaver!)

I want to tell everyone who left comments or sent emails while I was in China that I am so grateful to you! Even though I was alone with my baby in a foreign country, everyday I would read your comments and they would lift my spirits and make me feel no so alone anymore. I read every single one of them and they are each a precious part of our journey. And a special thank you to my dear friend Katrina for crying with me on the other side of the world!