Home 2 Months!

I can’t believe that Ashagre and Elsa have already been living with us in Ventura for two months.  In many ways it seems like there is no way that amount of time could have already passed and in others it feels like it has already been a lifetime.

The kids have the same little personalities we began to discover when we first met them during our court trip in November, but with so much more depth and unique character.

Elsa is the wild-child we thought she would be.  Like we expected, she definitely gives Ashagre a run for his money, both physically (she is much faster than him) and emotionally.  When they play together she calls the shots and can sometimes be quite bossy.  She is daring and generally fearless and definitely demands to be the center of attention most of the time.  She knows what she likes and doesn’t like and communicates it clearly.  She is a picky eater, but has been expanding her repertoire of acceptable foods pretty consistently since arriving in America.  Her favorites are macaroni and cheese with berbere, beans and rice, bananas, eggs, grapes, mangoes, and pancakes.  She is loud.  She LOVES music, and prefers to have it on at all times of the day so she can dance and sing along.  She's got moves and rhythm.  She especially loves Michael Franti, much to her Mommy’s delight.  She is generally a very fast-paced little girl (read: ball of energy) unless we are walking somewhere or eating.  Then she is the pokiest kid on the planet.  She is very bright and usually learns something the first time it is shown to her.  She can spell Elsa, Ashagre, Mommy, and Daddy.  She knows her alphabet and can count way beyond 20.  She even seemed to be grasping some simple addition the other day.  She knows all her colors and animals and is happy to help Ashagre if he is struggling with an activity involving numbers or colors that he doesn’t know as well as she does.

Ashagre is pretty much Elsa’s opposite in every way.  Like the little boy we met at Layla House, he likes to be on the periphery of things.  He will snuggle in his momma's lap on a Saturday morning for hours and just intently watch our lives unfold.  While definitely quieter than Elsa, he also can be quite loud, especially when he is feeling silly, which is often.  He cracks himself up regularly and loves slapstick-type comedy.  Tonight we watched an episode of Sesame Street where Grover was trying to get on a camel and kept falling off and he was just beside himself with giggles.  While all things language are more challenging for him, he seems particularly talented with all things visual-spatial.  He still loves to figure out how things work.  He will build things with legos for hours.  At first he demanded that we build things for him, but now he will disappear in his room and come out shyly, but proudly, with a completely symmetrical, aerodynamic airplane of his own creation.  He is a very talented drawer and colorer and adds lots of discernible detail to his drawings.  In a picture he drew of his baseball game there is a kid batting, kids on base, people sitting in the bleachers and a kid riding his scooter in the foreground.  Our epic battles over bath time are over and he now competes with his sister to be the first to take a bath, happily pouring cup after cup of water in his face.  He also loves playing in the waves at the ocean.  He is a talented egg sleuth that knows just when to look in a certain secret spot to find a large brown egg.  He is also stubborn and has a hard time being told what to do; however, he has some great self-regulating skills and will often reset his pouty mood with a short period of time if given some space.  Food-wise he will try anything and likes most of it.  He is a talented gardener, that obviously knew how to work a hoe long before he arrived in Ventura.  He can't wait for his corn to grow big so he can eat it.

On the more nuts and bolts front, here are some highlights of all the growth they've accomplished over the past two months:

• Language: Both kids, but especially Elsa, are primarily using English to communicate now.  They even speak in English when playing solely with one another.  Their vocabulary continues to expand daily.  Both kids have shown an amazing ability to really grasp the concept or inherent meaning of the words they know and use them in creative ways to express their needs and thoughts.  For example, Ashagre, will use the phrase, “Don’t touch,” to let us know that he needs some time to himself.  By saying, “Mommy Daddy don’t touch,” he can let us know that he needs a break and some time to process.  This phrase was originally taught to keep him safe, as in “Don’t touch the hot stove,” or to set boundaries, “Don’t touch Daddy’s computer.”  Elsa in particular really seems to have great comprehension and will often repeat back whatever you’ve just told her in her own words and then, once she’s confident she understands, explain it to Ashagre who usually has a tougher time putting it all together (he is on his third language, after all).

• Strength and Coordination: Both kids have shown leaps and bounds improvements in strength and coordination.  Among other things, I think evening after evening of coloring together before bed time as a family has greatly improved Elsa's fine motor skills and ability to stay in the lines.  Elsa is VERY strong and has impressive gross motor skills.  She can do the monkey bars and head stands by herself, she is very fast, and can climb ANYTHING.  She is also fearless and constantly leaves her Daddy gasping and reaching to stop a possible fall (which she never takes, unless she is on her scooter and distracted).  She loves to rocket herself off the big rubber ball on the trampoline and flip on her back (sounds dangerous, but she knows what she is doing and is quite precise).  Ashagre’s gross motor skills have greatly improved.  When he came home he had the smallest, most undefined little arms.  At the beach the other day, I noticed he actually has definition from little muscles now.  He can climb things, like the rock climbing section of the playground, that he couldn’t when he first came home.  In baseball, he is one of the only players on his team that can throw the ball all the way infield from the outfield.  Ashagre is fearless on his scooter preferring to go as fast as possible at all times.  He has always had good fine motor skills, which are particularly noticeable in his detailed artwork.

• Attachment: This is a tough one and my description would probably vary greatly depending on the day I typed this (and how confident I was feeling).  Both kids seem to be making progress attaching to us.  They definitely prefer us to strangers and look to us for support/protection in unfamiliar environments or around unfamiliar people.  They no longer get super anxious if we leave them with someone else (only their grandparents for short periods of time thus far), but definitely let us know that they would prefer we don’t leave them.  With that said, they will panic if they think I’ve disappeared somehow, and I have to be very careful to always tell them ahead of time if I am stepping outside to gather eggs, get the mail, or talk to the neighbor.  If I forget, even for a second, screaming and crying ensue.  Both kids show much more physical affection.  Ashagre still loves to snuggle and definitely needs physical contact regularly to feel safe and secure.  He also gives the best bear hugs at night before he goes to bed and first thing in the morning when he sees us and the sweetest kisses from time to time.  Elsa is and always has been less physically affectionate, but she does like to give out a kiss or two.  In the past, her kisses felt like she was trying to violate your personal space as much as possible (and I always imagined this is what it felt like to her to receive a kiss).  Now they are more affectionate and much less intense.  She has become much more interested in snuggling during down time and lets you rub her back from time to time.  Both kids are pretty good about making eye contact, unless they think they are in trouble for some reason, then it may take 45 minutes or so of playful persistence to get them even look at you, let alone look you in the eyes.

• Independence: This is another tough one and definitely related to attachment above.  It is especially tough for me as a pretty independent and largely introverted person myself.  While the kids do still require SO MUCH attention and energy, they have gained quite a bit of independence since coming home.  When they first arrived, they were literally physically attached to me or Brent every single moment they were awake.  They really didn’t seem to know how to play independently or with each other for even a few minutes and relied solely on us to devise, initiate, and maintain an active, playful day for them.  I remember thinking that if they could just go outside and play for 15 minutes it would be a miracle.  Now, they still require a lot of attention (likely an important thing for bonding), but can engage in and sustain independent play (with each other or by themselves) for pretty good stretches of time – at least long enough for me to do the dishes.  They are very comfortable at our house and will ask to go outside and play regularly, especially now that they've made friends with the dogs.

• Social Skills: This is an area that we can probably still do a lot of work in.  The kids are basically not interested in engaging with others, particularly friendly strangers or people they have just met.  Elsa is quicker to warm up to our adult friends if they make an effort to play with her, while Ashagre is more comfortable playing with peers.  The first response anyone gets when they say hello to either kid though is a loud, "NO," and refusal of eye contact.  In the next few weeks we will be starting to transition them to school, so it will be interesting to see how much they grow in this aspect of their lives over the next month.

So that's where things stand two months into this big experiment.  I can't wait to see how much they grow, learn, and accomplish in the next month or two.