Wednesday, February 10, 2010

A milestone in the family




With my sons I was used to them telling me that they loved me from a very young age. I am a pretty tactile person and there is a lot of hugging going on in the family too.

Last night my daughter gave me a huge hug and told me she loved me. As I sat there I realized that in the year and a half she has been with us that is the first time she has said that without any prompting. I think it is a huge milestone in the attachment process!

Winning over the RP was a slow process. She and I have always gotten along really well and I got a kiss from her early. I have always suspected that the ladies in the orphanage knew that the dad was the one they needed to win over. They really want the kids to be adopted and if you can hook the dad the wife is an easy follow. So when I was visiting the RP in the orphanage she suddenly called my Papa the second or third time we met. She also kissed me on the nose. I have always wondered if she was coached. Smart ladies if she was, I was hooked early!

But getting to a spontaneous hug and an "I love you"has taken a long time. When she first got home I got the sort of "stranger hug". After several months I started getting the deep hug and now finally we get "I love you".

So I guess we are making progress!

1 comment:

Annie said...

I have to laugh! Perhaps it IS a ploy of sorts. When we first met our Zhenya we were in Russia to adopt Sergei and though I'd mentioned perhaps being open to a "second child" what I envisioned was seeing a child, asking about him/her and it going from there. But, no! Jet lagged, stunned at the enormity of this undertaking, and before we even got to see Sergei (who we'd hosted - thus this was our first trip to Russia), we were put in the car to visit "the second child" (and the very idea of a second child was a complete surprise to my husband).

So... you get the picture. We meet this little guy; of course I fall in love with him immediately, and we get to spend maybe twenty minutes with him, during which time he demonstrates that he can run fast and swing high. The ladies take him away and our coordinator comes back and says, "He says he really likes the dad."

I was a bit abashed, but even so I could see the propitious nature of this announcement. We've never been sorry we said "yes" to our Zhen - and happily, he loves both of us. But, I sometimes wonder...did he REALLY say that???

Congratulations on that big pronouncement! It means the world, I know.