It is definitely time for an Adelina update. Today we were reminded why we are here, and we are feeling so much better as we reflect on how blessed we feel through her. She is so full of life and joy and curiosity and wonder. Her personality is blossoming left and right, and she is so content with us. We feel so privileged to be allowed to parent her even if on a very limited basis right now.
In addition to all of that, she is starting to communicate more freely with us. We have been told that she speaks words - Mama, Papa, Adela. But we have never heard these words per se (well, once we think we heard her say “mama” in reference to us to one of her caregivers, but we aren’t totally sure). What we have heard more and more is vocalization to get our attention (and lots and lots of hearty laughter). Her vocalizations are most often something like “Mah!” or just a yell of some sort. Also, if she sees something new, amazing, or exciting (like pictures on the computer) she sort of does a kind of excited form of baby-talk while pointing. We have tried to get her to understand some signs, but up until recently, we have failed at this. Finally, however, Adelina has picked up the sign for “please,” which is particularly useful because without it she doesn’t get the toy she is asking for or the treat mommy or daddy is ready to give her. There is powerful meaning in a desire for something, and with this assistance, she has learned her first sign. She is also working on “thank you”, which she does while muttering two syllables that we think are mimicking the two syllables in “thank you”. We are of course speaking the words while teaching the signs, but the past two days her hearing aid hasn’t been working, so the signing is that much more useful. All in all, we expect she will most likely dwell in the “hearing world”, but basic signs are useful with all children, and they will help her with her language development skills (we hope). If she ends up having difficulty learning to speak, we can pursue sign as her primary language, but we’ll have to see how things progress once we get her home.
Adelina is also exploring cause and effect in her world, especially as it pertains to sound. This is really encouraging as well. What we suspect is that while she had the ability to hear for the past year, she has had very few opportunities to learn how to focus on what causes sounds and how to make sounds herself. When she is with the other children, she is probably unable to differentiate sounds. There is constant noise from the young, needier children who cry a lot as well as bang or just make noise as kids are known to do. There are 15 children in her group, so it is always noisy. But with us, she is separate and we can explore things together. We learned that the light switch in the lobby not only turns on the lights, but it makes a nice clicking sound. There is a piano she likes to play (wonderfully loud). Also, if you looked at the pictures, you saw how she loves to pound her feet on the elephant slide, which is all metal. It makes loud booming sounds. She will then sit down and continue to kick her heels on the slide, which makes another booming noise. This is also where she first learned that yelling to us could make us turn around and give her our attention. All in all, she is at the baby stages of sound exploration and “baby talk”, but that is okay with us. The reading we did about speech development indicates that all children go through the same stages, though at different rates. Adelina has adequate intelligence (as far as we can tell), but is just now exploring sound in many ways for the first time. She seems to really enjoy it, and we hope she will pick up on things quickly as they begin to make more sense to her, especially once we have her full time, and all that noisy “static” will be dramatically reduced. As she gets more acquainted with sounds, she will be able to distinguish between background noise and close up speech and so on.
It is amazing to begin to see the world through Adelina’s eyes. Things that have been right here all along are suddenly new and wonderful to her. The cars and buses are within view and we’ve seen the groups take walks clear up to the gate. But Adelina hadn’t shown any interest in them until she looked at them with us or maybe it was the influence of the two car rides she’s taken with us. Anyhow, now she thinks they are fascinating and when we walk to the gate she is mesmerized by the cars and buses, especially the big ones. She is the same way with birds and insects making sure to point them all out to us.
Best of all is to see how she lights up when she sees us coming. She quickens her pace, and our hearts melt to see her gorgeous smile. Her demeanor around us has changed. She has always been smiley and happy, but now she has a relaxed, contented feel that is much more natural. Trust seems to be developing, and it is so wonderful!! She doesn’t cry so much when we leave, and we think this is because we have been visiting so consistently. She is okay to say goodbye as long as we do say goodbye and give hugs and kisses before leaving. Once, she got scooted into the bathroom with the others prior to our saying goodbye. So we were waiting for her to come out before leaving, but I guess she thought we had gone without saying goodbye. The caregiver brought her out and she had obviously been crying hard. Steve consoled her (I was on the phone at the time) and she calmed down. We then did our hugs, kisses, and said goodbye, and she seemed much better after that. She went in to dinner without any further tears. What a precious girl! We can’t begin to tell you how wonderful she is!! Well, we can try I guess. LOL
