21 March 2006
happy anniversary
Six has been a total pill the last couple of days.
Stomping around the house, refusing to anything he's told to do, saying "you don't like me" till I start thinking seriously about whether I do, pushing, hitting, provoking his sibs, breaking things, flooding bathrooms.
He is usually such a sweetheart.
My first hypothesis was that something had happened at school. Subtle investigation ("[Six] were you a good boy at school?") shot that one down. Then I took his temp--nope, this wasn't going to get cured by children's Tylenol.
Then on the drive to Five's school it hit me: we are in Six's anniversary month.
This is one of the pieces of adoptive parent lore that other people find hardest to believe, but pretty much every adoptive parent of older children (and some adoptive parents of infants too) reports this phenomenon to the various listservs I hang out on.
Even if they don't know they remember, they remember. Even if their minds do not have access, their bodies, their nervous systems, their reptile brains do. Six landed in the orphanage sometime in March. He was about a year and a half old.
As an adult with decent emotional and cognitive processing capabilities, I handle abandonment and betrayal pretty badly, as I believe most of us do. Imagine how hard it is to process for a child. How could he not blame himself? How could he possibly believe I won't do it too?
I look at this loud, demanding, cranky, defiant, whiny, pissant of a kid and say, "[Six], you are my good good boy and I am your Mama forever and I am never ever ever letting you go and I will keep you forever and ever and when I am an old old old lady I know you will still be my good good boy."
He snuggles in for a hug--I am not making this up--in mid-screech about whatever it was, melts into my body, and tells me that he will be my good good boy forever and when I am "a old gramma" he will give me food and a towel so I won't be cold after my bath and he will buy me a red car and cover me up with soft blankets when I am sleeping.
Happy anniversary.
Stomping around the house, refusing to anything he's told to do, saying "you don't like me" till I start thinking seriously about whether I do, pushing, hitting, provoking his sibs, breaking things, flooding bathrooms.
He is usually such a sweetheart.
My first hypothesis was that something had happened at school. Subtle investigation ("[Six] were you a good boy at school?") shot that one down. Then I took his temp--nope, this wasn't going to get cured by children's Tylenol.
Then on the drive to Five's school it hit me: we are in Six's anniversary month.
This is one of the pieces of adoptive parent lore that other people find hardest to believe, but pretty much every adoptive parent of older children (and some adoptive parents of infants too) reports this phenomenon to the various listservs I hang out on.
Even if they don't know they remember, they remember. Even if their minds do not have access, their bodies, their nervous systems, their reptile brains do. Six landed in the orphanage sometime in March. He was about a year and a half old.
As an adult with decent emotional and cognitive processing capabilities, I handle abandonment and betrayal pretty badly, as I believe most of us do. Imagine how hard it is to process for a child. How could he not blame himself? How could he possibly believe I won't do it too?
I look at this loud, demanding, cranky, defiant, whiny, pissant of a kid and say, "[Six], you are my good good boy and I am your Mama forever and I am never ever ever letting you go and I will keep you forever and ever and when I am an old old old lady I know you will still be my good good boy."
He snuggles in for a hug--I am not making this up--in mid-screech about whatever it was, melts into my body, and tells me that he will be my good good boy forever and when I am "a old gramma" he will give me food and a towel so I won't be cold after my bath and he will buy me a red car and cover me up with soft blankets when I am sleeping.
Happy anniversary.
