Toddler Transition Tips

So I have been thinking again about what the transition will be like for our 12 month+ child when the time comes and there have also been some recent Rwanda referrals for 18 month + kidos. So I thought I would post this. It is long but maybe it will help somone out there. When I wrote it last year it was worded from our experience in Ethiopia, but it would be the same for Rwanda or perhaps any other country for that matter. Here you go:

Toddler Transition in Ethiopian Adoption
·I wrote this in response to questions about our own process and how we adjusted. Our daughter was almost 3 years old when we traveled to get her and we have since found out that she is at least 1 to 2 years older then reported (now 4-5) but I still believe that this applies to any child between ages 1 and probably 5 or so. If you are adopting a toddler here are my recommendations which I have gathered from my personal experience as a parent, a previous family therapist, and a school psychologist:

1) Be prepared for your child to reject you at some point, either at the first meeting or later when home. He or she may develop a preference for one parent and completely reject the other. Remember that this is totally normal and a “survival strategy” from yoru child's perspective.

2) Focus on "bonding" with your child and don't get wrapped up in the "attachment" stuff. I say bonding because really this is what is happening in the initial months together. You can't even look at "attachment" for many months down the road. It takes a typical biological child 10 months to show signs of "attachment". Attachment occurs over repeated and consistent interactions. I heard families talking about “attaching” to their child while in Ethiopia. No one becomes attached to someone else, especially a child who has experience loss, in a week. At best in the few months home your child will experience what is described as a “insecure attachment” to you. This is when they are afraid to be out of your sight, which is not a good thing either, but part of the process.

3) Go to country with a set of activities in mind to do with your child to facilitate the "bonding" process. Bubbles are great. Take stickers and put them on your nose to facilitate eye contact. Play peek-a-bo, alot. Make hand prints on black tag board with lotion. Play the lotion "slip" game where you grab hands and slip away from each other. Many other simple ideas can be found in the Theraplay book. It is for play therapists who do attachment therapy but based on simple activities that many parents do naturally with infants. It is not rocket science and you don’t need to be a therapist to do these natural activities with your child! Many older children still need this "baby type" play games with you to relive those missed early stages of development.

4) Bring a picture book of EVERYTHING with you, include each room of your house, the pets, other children, anything that may be unfamiliar to him or her.

5) Be prepared for the immense difficulty of the language barrier. We found it to be more of a problem with her understanding transitions and routines. So "picture schedules" were helpful. She learned English quickly and then we seemed to hit a road block around 9 months home when she had adjusted and we realized that she was older but her English language development had not yet caught up to her non-verbal IQ. I think kids have a lot of tantrums that may be perceived as “grief” when in reality they are darn frustrated because they cannot express themselves verbally to you and there is a lot of miscommunication going on.

6) Carry your child as long as you can. I brought a sling and put her in it. She loved being carried in it and it really helped with trust and bonding. I also felt better with her in it and on me when in the van in Ethiopia (they have no seatbelts). I used it in public the first few months home and still even now put her in it when she is distraught and needs that security.

7) Expect that at some point you may experience hitting, kicking, pinching, biting, screaming, throwing. This might be fatigue, it might be grief, it might be pure rage, or frustration and fear. Our daughter bit my husband on the airplane home and just recently said to me “mommy I was scared on the airplane because I thought we were going to fall down”. Wow that realization of her awareness hit me like a brick.

8) Safety proof the house as much as possible before you come home. They may not have had experience with hot stoves, outlets, hot water, streets, etc.

9) Keep the rules and limits loose at first and then get tighter as time goes on and he or she gets used to having limits.

10) Use choices, give two choices, if he or she does not choose you choose and ride out any subsequent tantrum. This worked great for my daughter’s issues with clothes, she would want to pick out her own outfits but would get really overwhelmed by all the choices. Same for food and really anything else.

11) Expect that your toddler may be overly clingy or overly independent or go back and forth. Find a happy medium until the trust is built.

12) Expect possible sensory issues. Certain sounds, lights, smells, types of touch may trigger tantrums which seem out of the ordinary.

13) When you toddler experiences something new, he or she may have a tantrum when it is time to end or give it back. This happened with us when it was time to get out of the bathtub!

14) Don't expect that your child will let you know when he or she is hurt. Make it a point to overly respond with affection every time she or he gets a bump or scratch. That way he or she learns that you will respond and care.

15) Don't let his or her feet touch the ground in public until you know he or she will stay by your side. They may have no fear of the street, of getting lost, or being stolen. We put one of those leash/backpack animals on our daughter’s back. Thankfully she thought it was funny and we know that she could not run from us. Who care what other people think.

16) Don’t trust your child around a swimming pool. Our daughter was a fish but did not know how to swim and had NO fear of water. I would drop her to touch the bottom and then pull her up right away so that she would realize how deep it was.

17) Prepare for sleeping problems and what seemes like irrational fears from your child. They will be in a state of hypervigilence and you will need to be there to urn his or her trust. We let our daughter sleep in our bed for the first month, then moved her to a seperate bed in our room, then a few months later moved her into her own room. Many of these kids have never slept in a bedroom alone in their life. Nightmares and night terrors were very common the first few months home.

18) (Specific to Ethiopia) Know that do to various reasons you child may be older then reported. This is really because of a combination of things, not being born in a hospital, differences in calendar (Ethiopia is 7 years behind), children looking younger due to malnutrition, and they do not celebrate birthdays in Ethiopia. After a few months home, if you have a questions about it, get a development assessment to look at fine and gross motor skills. A bone-scan may help but may not be accurate due to malnutrition. If you have access to a child psychologist a non-verbal IQ test may help get you in the ballpark of understanding what your child know without the interference of the language issue. Most importantly get a full set of x-rays at the dentist and this will show what teeth are coming in. Our first substantial data to show that our daughter was older came from the dentist.

19) At home you may notice that your child does not seem to know how to play with toys or do simple activities. Our daughter could not put togethers simple puzzles. This is usually because they just have not had access to many toys. Give it time and play with your child to show them how to use things.

20) Lastly know that things might get easier and then harder again and your child progresses through his or her fears and development. Our daughter started having sleeping problems again around 9 months home after the grandparents came to stay at our house and we went out for one evening. It seemed to trigger lots of fear around the same time that we had started to see signs of separation anxiety (A sure tell sign that you are now in fact “attached”).

Maybe Good News

I read from another blog that a source in Rwanda has confirmed that the person who is in charge of approving families to adopt in Rwanda has been out of town for 3 weeks and is back at the office. Things may take awhile yet, as I know she is a very busy woman, but just maybe?

Miraculous Monday

How much do you spend at Starbucks or your local coffee shop every month? Well if you give up approximately 2 mochas a month you can join the Mocha Club and make a difference by donating $7 a month to your chosen project. Yes, that is correct, only $7 a month. This sounds like pennies to most of us, but in most places in the world that small amount of money can make a enormous difference. And as a bonus (o.k. now this is sounding like a infomercial) if you join by the end of this week you get to choose a free t-shirt! The specific causes that you can specify your contribution to include: Child mothers and women at risk, clean water, education, HIV/AIDS and Health Care, or orphan care and vulnerable children. So whatever your passion, they have a way to make a big difference from a small sacrifice. Some examples of just how far your money goes: $5 provides lifesaving antiretroviral medication to one person for a month, $1 provides one person with clean water for a year, $10 provides a mosquito net to prevent malaria for a whole family. The core of the program is about making connections and building bridges throughout the world, so after you join you can invite people you know to make a team and then stay connected with your cause in Africa. Now that's worth giving up to mochas a month! Go to: https://www.mochaclub.org/

Summer Fun!

Our version of boating in the mountains.

Pets and Popsicles at the Plumb Farm.

At the park in Fort Collins.

Posing with the Wizard of Oz musical cast.

Taking a break at the "Taste of Africa" orphan and adoption fundraiser.

Our master fly fisherman.

Hiking in the Rockies with the dogs.

Steer at the Greeley Stampede 4th of July parade.

Kids showing off at the parade.
Roasting marshmallows in the backyard.
Ethan building one of many huge sandcastles at the Loveland beach.

Working hard at our rummage sale.

Belated Miraculous Monday

I seem to be in a bit of a time worp as Monday came and gone without me even realizing that it was Monday! That will all change when I go back to work in three weeks! We have been in full summer force the last few weeks. I guess trying to pack in as much fun before the summer is over. We held the BIG fundraiser at church, enjoyed a day at the pool, then the beach, made a couple day trips to the mountains, and had a blast attending the Wizard of OZ musical at a local dinner theater. I was so proud that our 5 year old sat through the entire musical, in her own chair, and completely mesermerized by the whole thing.

I also have packed in lots of reading about Rwanda thanks to the local library. A couple weeks ago I finished reading "Land of a Thousand Hills" and that leads me to my miracle for the week. It is not so much a organization but a place and a person. Rosamond Halsey Carr, a American citizen, moved to Rwanda as a young newly wed. She eventually became a flower plantation manager and later owner of her own land. Her story is amazing and I would highly reccomend the book to anyone, not only to learn about the beautiful country of Rwanda, but also to learn of her amazing story. Rosamond was forced to flee the country during the Genocide of 1994 but then at the age of 82 years old returned to the country and people who she loved. She found her home to be completely ransacked yet she stayed and lead the rebuilding to open a orphanage on her property. Ms. Halsey Carr passed away in 2006 at the age of 94 but the orphanaged named Imbabazi, meaning "A place where you would receive all the love that a mother could give" is still up an running. Since 1994 the orphanage has cared for more then 400 orphans. Following Ms. Halsey Carr's death the Imbabazi Foundation was established to support the managing and overseeing of the orphanage. You can visit the foundation's website at: http://www.imbabazi.org/ Projects supporting the orphanage can be seen at
http://www.chrf.org/orphan-rwanda.html and http://www.rwandaproject.org/project.html

Miraculous Monday

Not feeling so miraculous but we will see, perhaps some news this week? In the meantime here is my organization for today. Everyone has heard of Heifer International right? Well did you know that you can search a map on their website to learn what specific projects they have going in each country and then if you want to specifically donate to that project you just indicate the project number on the memo line of you check. It was a little hard to get the cursor exactly on Rwanda but yes Heifer International has a large economic development project underway in Rwanda ton help girl headed families and female genocide survivors who were raped and infected with HIV/AIDS. There is also a large project in Ethiopia to assist with the development of a existing Environmental Development Association. To check it out go to http://www.heifer.org/ and click on "Our Work" and then "Our Projects". We recently bought a flock of chickens for the Rwanda project for my mother-in-law for her birthday. Hmm who has a birthday coming up next so we can donate to the Ethiopia project? I have found that gifts in honor of someone make much better presents then trying to guess at something that they really don't need.
Information about this picture:
Heifer Project International - Rwanda
Muhazi Women's Dairy and Horticulture Development Project
Kibungo District, Rwanda
Heifer beneficiary, Channel, age 6 years, daughter of Frida, posed with "Superbness". Frida, 33 years old, is the mother and beneficiary of a cow she named, "Superbness". A Jersey that was placed in her family on February 12, 2007, the cow produces 14 liters of milk per day. The benefits of this yield cannot be underestimated as Frida is the mother and primary caregiver to 12 children (5 are biological, 7 are orphans of HIV/AIDS relatives of hers).
Image by Geoff Oliver Bugbee, Heifer International

No News is Good News?

I sure hope that this is the case as we have received no word on the Rwanda adoption front since our dossier arrived there 13 weeks ago. I am not to concerned as no one, that we know of, in the process has received any news either. When we started the adoption process for the second time we were considering a second Ethiopia adoption then changed course. Every once in awhile I visit the list serve for the Ethiopia adoptive families working with our home study agency. Today I was surprised to see a referral of a infant girl to a family who finished their home study the same time as us (End of December). Of course this leads me to think about our change in course, and what might be happening in our life right now if we had not changed plans. I am however a strong believer that things happen for a reason and there must be some reason why I felt so pulled to Rwanda. And the "signs" just keep emerging, so many things that I come across lately lead to that beautiful country. And what a small world it is, my husband had the fortune of meeting a physician and professor of Immunology from one of the local research universities this week. Not only was the professor able to give us some very helpful information about something that keeps popping up in our daughter's bloodwork (maybe a normal result for somone from a African country) but he also just returned from providing a seminar to doctor's in Rwanda. A small world indeed. So back to my original topic, maybe we need to slow down for a reason, maybe there is some preparation that I am missing and still need to work on. Whatever the reason may be it will reveal itself in time, so for now I hope that "Now news is good news".

Admission

O.k. I admit I am experiencing a moment of fatigue and frustration. Typically summers are filled with just hanging out and having fun with the kids. But for some reason this summer has flown by. It has become what I am calling the "summer of service". Between summer jobs, volunteer service, and prepping for fundraising time has just gone to fast. There have also been moments when all that I do feels fruitless. I put alot of time into applying for several adoption grants and all we continue to receive are rejection letters. I was really hoping we would at least receive support from "Show Hope" but today I received their rejection letter as well. Maybe we make to much money, which is hard to believe given that we are lower middle class, or maybe we are just not the right type of people if you know what I mean. Whatever the reason it is still frustrating. Now I am not saying that I am not fully aware of how blessed I am in my life, but everyone now and then I still get frustrated like everyone else.

Honey Bread-Update with Recipe

I am baking my favorite bread to sell at our fundraiser this Saturday. It is a recipe for Ethiopian Honey Bread and I usually have no problem with the recipe. Problem is I have made three batches totalling 12 loaves and every single batch has turned out different! The first batch was perfect, better then I have ever baked it! Then the second batch completely flopped, it did not rise well and was hard and to brown. So I racked my brain to try and figure out what I did differently and I cannot figure it out. So I whipped up another batch and again totally different bread, it rose bigger then any of the others but then rested to look like large flatter loaves. Uhg! Maybe it is the weather, I have found baking in a higher elevation to be much more difficult. Well, that is life, and maybe it is ok that way that we never have complete control over anything. Sure wish I could figure out what was so special about that first loaf though!

After this post I did some searching in the internet for alternative Honey Bread recipes and guess what?! Turns out that Honey Bread is also a Rwanda recipe. The only difference in the recipes is the use of cinnamon and a little more water in the Rwanda recipe. Also instead of putting the dough in a pan, I make a two strand braid and cook it on a baking sheet. Just like the coffee of Ethiopia and Rwanda, Honey Bread is the best bread I have ever tasted. So here is the recipe, enjoy!

Rwandan Honey Bread Recipe

1 package active dry yeast 1 egg 4 -4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour1 cup lukewarm milk 1/2 cup honey 3/4 cup lukewarm water 6 tablespoons of melted, unsalted butter 1 tablespoon ground coriander1 1/2 tsp salt 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon 1/4 tsp ground cloves

Put the lukewarm water in a bowl and sprinkle the yeast over top. Wait two or three minutes then stir thoroughly. Allow the mixture to stand in a warm place until the mixture almost doubles in volume. This should take another five minutes, approximately.
Using a separate bowl, whisk together the egg, honey, coriander, cinnamon, cloves and salt. Add the yeast, milk and four tbsp of the butter. Beat, then stir in the flour gradually. Use just enough flour to make a dough that forms a soft ball. If you can no longer stir it, use your hands to blend in as much additional flour as needed.

Flour a kneading board or other surface and knead the dough several times. You may smear a little melted butter over your hands to prevent sticking, but avoid using extra flour. You want the dough to remain soft and workable. Knead for about five minutes or until the dough is smooth.

Butter a large bowl, and place the shaped ball of dough into the bowl. Cover and let rise in a warm location until twice the size. This takes an hour, give or take. Give the dough one sharp punch to flatten it and then knead for one or two minutes. Place it in the baking dish after you have shaped it into a round ball. Press down into corners.

Allow the dough to rise again for about an hour, or until it has doubled in size.
Warm the oven to 300 ° F. Place the Rwandan honey bread in the middle of the oven for approximately an hour or a little less. When done, the top should be crusty and a light golden color. Cool on a cake rack.

Miraculous Monday

The subject today is coffee. I really like coffee, but mostly only high quality coffee with lots of sugar and creme. Most people have heard about Ethiopian grown coffee since Ethiopia is reportedly the birthplace of coffee. They also have elaborate coffee ceremonies and I can vouch after being in Ethiopia that the country is crazy about their coffee and it is really good, perhaps among the best in the world. So I was surprised when I started reading about the coffee industry in Rwanda. I then picked up a bag of Rwanda coffee at who would guess, Target of all places. I have to say I now LOVE my Rwanda coffee. So I did some Internet research and it turns out that Rwanda has nearly 500,000 small coffee producers and the country has generated between 15 and 35 million in annual revenue from coffee exports. In 2002 they made a significant leap in being able to sell coffee directly to US and European companies for prices much higher then what the traditional multi-middle-man system allowed. The coffee beans grown in Rwanda are of the old heirloom ‘bourbon’ varieties, the same type of coffee bean which grew wild in Ethiopia when coffee was discovered.

The problem is that because the coffee farms are so small in Rwanda the farmers are lacking in the resources and technology to quickly load and transport the coffee. The faster the transportation the better the beans hold their flavor. Unlike in the US, few families in Rwanda own cars, let alone donkeys and a cart. Hence the organization that I am featuring today: Project Rwanda. "Project Rwanda is committed to furthering the economic development of Rwanda through initiatives based on the bicycle as a tool and symbol of hope. Our goal is use the bike to help boost the Rwandan economy as well as re-brand Rwanda as a beautiful and safe place to do business and visit freely." They have identified several initiatives including: 1) Build Awareness for Rwanda, 2) Creation of Specially Designed Bikes, 3) Bike Distribution in Rwanda, 4) Enhancing National Pride in Rwanda. Visit their website at: http://projectrwanda.org/cargo-bike So what can you do? Buy and enjoy some of the best coffee in the world! Go to: http://woodenbikecoffee.com/

We Are Ready

O.k. the house is ready for more children. The closets have been cleaned out, the extra living room is now a play room and the crib is set up in our daughter's room with space and storage to spare. We also did find a van awhile ago. A Toyota Sienna (sorry to dissapoint all the Odyssey fans) with a 8 passenger capacity, a roof rack and a towing package. We are also holding a large fundraiser at our church next weekend which will feature samples of food dishes from various countries of Africa, a bake sale, silent auction, and orphanage donation collection. Please pray that we have a large turnout as I will be busy preparing and cooking next week!