Turned some sort of invisible corner....

It has been four days...four days where we go to bed at the end of the day and say, "wow, she was really happy today." Alissa seems to have made the decision to try to be happy and not fight the parental authority so much.

She is relatively happy, she is listening (as a typical 3/4 year old does), she isn't screaming for no reason, and she hasn't hit her brother recently. She IS using her words to describe things. I have heard her use emotion words to try to describe a situation instead of yelling or throwing herself on the floor. She tells us she misses us, repeats "I love you," she thanks us for helping her, she has told me that an incident makes her sad, she is asking for hugs, and she is making her bed in the morning (straightening one sheet) without a complete screaming hysterical meltdown - and then coming in and telling us she made her bed with no crying!. She told her grandmother, without prompting, that she liked talking!

She is trying so hard to follow the rules and be good. She seems proud of herself that she is trying. We've been trying to give her lots of warm fuzzies and let her know we can see how hard she is trying and it makes us so happy. Last night I heard her say, "relax - try - no cry" (we are trying to reserve crying for when we are sad, scared, or hurt - not when we are mad or frustrated.)

We have seen her grasping for control/dominance over her older brother, at the same time she is making all of these strides, but this one seems a little easier to deal with. She is copying - everything - whether the persons actions are good or bad. So we have issues with the oldest child teaching her inappropriate reactions to things. For example, our son has a legtimate complaint, although over-reacted, to one of the 10 vegetables that are in a soup. One solution would be to just not eat the one vegetable. Instead, we eat it, whine, pretend to gag, drink a full glass of liquid, insist on getting, more, complain, etc. (annoying enough as it is - because eventually he eats it all with no issues, complaints, etc.). However, as soon as he starts, Alissa thinks that is what you are supposed to do when you eat soup. So although she loves soup and everything in it, she copies him and then refuses to eat any more......More than slightly annoying. He eventually gets over it, realizes it didn't get him anywhere and he will just get the soup for lunch the next day - so he happily finishes up a decent portion for him. Alissa just keeps it up, unless we can all start overreacting how much we LIKE the soup, how good it is for us, etc. AND then the soup is good and we are eating again. Our new rule is Mason has to complain about dinner in another room. It is working relatively well.

This is just one example of all the things she missed before coming here. She truthfully didn't know any appropriate reaction for almost any situation or language for anything. I guess babies observe so much when they are infants and as they grow up - AND then they have the skills to translate into their reactions. She seemingly had none of that. Being nonverbal in Polish she didn't have the language either. I remember teaching her to shiver when she was cold and explaining the difference between cold and warm. I know she had experienced cold, but she hadn't processed a reaction to the cold until being taught. I read many books and articles about internationally adopted kids adjusting, but truthfully, they never prepared me for the very basic things that we would need to teach her - things that you just assume people know.

On a more fun note, her new favorite things are: John Deere the Movie ---yep a whole movie of tractors. She loves the movie, acts it out, dances to the tractor parade, etc. She wants to ride on a tractor soooo bad. She is also playing with the doll she got for her b-day. She seems to be adding more pretend play to her interactions with the doll. She has moved up to slightly harder puzzles and has been learning her letters and numbers. The one thing that she can stay completely focused on for a long time (besides tractors) is letters. She loves to play with letters, pretend to read, be read to, have letter puppet shows, color letters, etc. We truthfully didn't expect a fascination with letters.

As soon as I solve the space problem with google re: too many pictures I'll post some updated pictures of us playing in the snow. We had more than 2.5 feet here over the last few storms.