Thankful for 6 months with Kate Emerson

April 4, 2007

The moment I held you!

April

May



June

July

August


September

I am so thankful for the six months that Katie Ru has been a part of our family. She has brought so much joy to our lives. For the most, part she is doing amazingly well. When Dave got Kate she did not even have a pincer grasp and now she can use a fork to feed herself. This week she learned to blow bubbles with a bubble wand! Kate has learned to crawl and to walk. She understands most of what we say and she is adding words to her vocabulary everyday. She says up, more, hi, bye-bye, apple, out, bubble, Daddy, Mama, baby, puppy and this week she added "hot." One of the things I love most about Kate is her awesome sense of humor and her laugh is the sweetest sound you'll ever hear. She is a huge blessing to us all.

As hard as this is to share, I want to write about one more issue we have experienced recently. Kate is showing some signs of indiscriminate attachment. Indiscriminate attachment is sometimes referred to as "overfriendliness." It basically means the child will show affection to strangers. Miss Kate blows kisses to passerbys at the mall. She is definitely "overfriendly." As you all know, I did not let anyone hold, feed, bathe or clothe Kate for the first 6-8 weeks after her arrival home. I did this so she would form a strong attachment to me and Dave. She needed to know that we would meet her needs. She needed to know that she could trust us completlely. After about 6-8 weeks, we began letting very close friends who she had seen often hold her. Well, at the 8 week mark exactly it was Kate's 1st birthday and Baptism. My Mom and my sister and best friends had never met Kate. They travelled to spend this special weekend with her and I let them all hold her. After that, I let Kate go to people and hug them and kiss them if we knew them. I now realize that was probably a mistake.Kate is extremely affectionate and she wanted to hug and kiss everyone. And I do mean everyone. She would hug little babies at the park and mommies at the Little Gym. She wanted to hug and kiss every single person we came in contact with. I knew this wasn't really right but I kept telling myself she is just really affectionate and loving. She hugs and kisses me 200 times a day! I read a lot about attachment during our wait and I have a Ph.D. in marriage and family communication and did post-doc work in counseling so my little inner voice kept telling me that Kate had indiscriminate attachment. But I didn't want to believe it. I didn't let 100 people come to the airport to meet her. I did all of the care-taking for a very long time. I kept her routine consistent and I didn't introduce her to a lot of people right away. Although I tried to do everything right, I felt like I had failed my little girl. After talking with some specialists in this field and reading a lot more on attachment, I know that this happens with adopted babies and it needs to be rectified so that they can learn boundaries and trust in relationships down the road. According to the research, indiscriminate friendliness does NOT necessarily mean that Kate has not attached to us. She just needs to learn that it isn't okay to hug and kiss everyone she sees. To this end, we are back to not letting anyone hold, feed or watch Kate again. We cannot even let Will or Harry hold her right now. She needs to know that Mom and Dad will meet her needs. It has only been a few weeks and already I have seen a big difference. She is not reaching out to strangers anymore and she only went to hug one Mom at the Little gym this week. She wants a lot of touch from me but that is okay. I am sharing this for two reasons. One is to remind myself of some of the issues we have dealt with (because I am so tired I know I will forget before long). The other is to let people know this can be a red flag for attachment problems. At first, I thought..."awww isn't that sweet.... she is so affectionate and outgoing." But if I do not teach her healthy and appropriate boundaries now, the problems she could encouter down the road are pretty awful. When I shared my concerns with a few friends, they had no idea that this extreme affection toward people was a red flag in the attachment process. So, for those of you on this path to adoption, tuck this away somewhere in your head and if you need more information, feel free to e-mail me.