September 15, 2006
Introducing the Amazing Hunter girls to the Incredible Hunter Gang
Today when I went to get Maggie-Vera from her class she came running from the other room and gave me a huge hug. I still don’t know how I kept myself from crying all over her. She was just getting ready for the day, so the caregiver let me help her get dressed. She’s such a big girl and does a great job of dressing herself, but she still let me help just a little with a couple of the hard buttons. I had brought her a little red velvet overall outfit for the day, and those buttons on the straps can get a little tricky. Still, she let me know pretty quickly that she’s a big girl and she can do MOST of this stuff by herself. Well, at least I got a big hug today so I don’t think I can whine too very much about the rest of her independence!
Once we got back to the playroom she went straight to the bag and started looking for her coat. The kid’s got some more of a memory! She’s already figured out which is her bag and which is Ryn’s, and she knows that the big, green Tanner bag is the one with the clothes in it. Leap? Coloring book? Apple juice? Nope – just bring on the leopard print. Gotta say – that sounds a little scary when you put it that way, doesn’t it?
My sweet Ryn-Alina was in rare form today, and I saw her first full-fledged temper tantrum. She actually lay flat on her back, kicked her feet and screamed. I knew it wasn’t funny, but I was just completely bemused. It just seemed like such an un-Ryn thing to do. Even on her grouchy day she didn’t get that bent out of a shape. However, a little later in the morning I noticed that she was a little warm and that she kept putting her hands and about half of the toys in her mouth. She’s trying to get two molars and one of the front teeth on the bottom. Cathy could tell me exactly which tooth it is and the nice proper name for it, but all I know is that it’s making for a pretty miserable little girl. I ended up spending most of today with Ryn on my hip, and ZhaZha Dae Dae played with Maggie.
We’ve been visiting with the girls for a week now, so I figured it was time to start introducing them to the rest of their new family. We had put together photo albums for both of the girls full of pictures of all the family members. I thought that would give us such a great opportunity for a warm, fuzzy family moment. See if you can get this picture in your head: a girl on each side of me on the ugly sofa, going through the photo albums, with us slowing talking about each of the members of the family so they’d really start to know them. Now – completely scrap that image. Replace it with one child crying any time I sat down, and the other one getting mad if I didn’t let her turn the page when she was ready. So much for that warm, fuzzy family moment! I strongly suspect that the moment we got was more like the real thing anyway. When it was time for the girls to go back to their rooms Maggie-Vera’s caregiver asked if they could take the photo album with them to share with the other caregivers. I suspect that they’ll go through it with her in the evening. Either that, or all the caregivers will be laughing their heads off at all of our pictures from that last trip to Panama City Beach. Oh yeah – now I’m especially glad I took out that picture of all of us on the beach in our bathing suits!
