As you listen to Chloe speak, there is one particular word that is noticeably missing from her vocabulary. It's her name "Chloe." She can say almost anything you tell her, but whenever you ask her who is in the picture or in the mirror, she always responds "me." At Chloe's last therapy session, I spoke to Arleta about this and she too thought it seemed odd. It turned out to be quite a session. The whole goal of the 90 minutes was to get Chloe to say "My name is Chloe." She would say everything except Chloe. This is the first time that Chloe has completely refused to do something in a therapy session. It seemed to be a hold out of some sort that she wouldn't acknowledge her American name. She was beginning to embrace her family and language, but not her name. Chloe doesn't even seem to have a response to her Chinese name.
Well today we had a break through. I was holding Chloe to put her to sleep this afternoon, so I tried prompting her to say her name. This is something I've tried repeated since the last therapy session with no success. Sure enough, today when I had Chloe repeat after me "my name is..." Chloe came out too! I had her repeat it several times to make sure it wasn't just a fluke, but each time there was a very distinctive Clo-eee. I have continued to ask her this evening what her name is and she continues to answer Chloe, with an occasional "me" thrown in with a giggle. Praise the Lord for little breaks throughs like this one. We need the encouragement to keep clodding through the bonding process. Who knows why it was so difficult for Chloe to embrace and accept her American name. The complexity of the mind created by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is beyond fathom.
This family picture was taken at Greg's 20th Year High School Reunion in Atwater, OH. We were able to spend the night at his parent's house for the first time since the adoption as a family. Chloe did pretty well sleeping away from home and has really begun to reach out and accept others outside our immediate family. This makes her grandma and grandpa very happy.
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2 comments:
Elaine-
We also have a daughter from Qianjiang SWI. I would love to visit with you regarding attachment. Our daughter just turned 4 and we've seen great progress with her attachment but we are still struggling in some areas. We have an attachment specialist but I always am interested in learning more!
Can you email me?
Cindy
heitfamily@yahoo.com
Hi Elaine,
I'm Kelly (aka Truly Blessed in bloggerland), mom to 5 great kids: three teenage boys and two toddler daughters.
I'm visiting your blog because of an "it's a small world" meeting I had with your in-laws two weekends ago. We were staying in a hotel in southern Michigan and went to the pool with our children -- and walked past the folks who were enjoying the breakfast buffet. Obviously, your in-laws were sitting at one of the tables and noticed that two of our children are beautiful toddlers who don't look like their Mom & Dad and big brother. So when they came into the pool area and walked over to where I was sitting, I figured they were curious about our daughters. Our girls are almost 4 & almost 3 and were both adopted from China.
We had a lovely talk and they shared with me your blog address (I sure hope that's okay!). And now that I've read it, I would love to share it with a dear friend who has a darling daughter who was born in China but who has had apparently similar issues with her in attachment. I think some of your posts might be very beneficial to her. Would that be okay?
Please visit my blog: http://livvinmydream2.blogspot.com and leave me a message if I can or can't send my friend April a link to your blog.
You have a gorgeous family. Chloe is adorable and I am so glad to see that she is making such great strides in attaching with you!
Kelly
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