Getting to Know You....

The children at the orphange are extremely, extremely blessed to have a wonderful person like Anne who is there to love them, play with them and offer them gentleness, kindness and stimulation in the form of playing, loving touch, singing and music. There is no question that she will make a tremendous impact on their lives.

However, she is also a blessing for us as parents. Not only is she providing invaluable attention to our child, but she is a voice for us so that we may get to know our child before we even get to hold her in our arms. Through her mails, I am already getting to know my little girl.

I had written her some questions about Uma Aakriti and from her answers, we can begin to know our child. I will refer to her as Aakriti in this post since that is what she is called now, and that the the name Anne knows her by.

It seems that Aakriti makes alot of eye contact with Anne, both when she is happy and she is sad. When she is feeling happy, she looks at Anne and when Anne looks back, Aakriti gives her a sweet smile.

None of the children have toys of their own. When Anne comes, she takes the toys out to play with them with the children. All of the children like to listen to music and when she plays the radio, Aakriti likes to dance a little to the music. I can only imagine how cute that must look! With no toys to play with on her own, Aakriti has very cleverly made a toy out of a little chair that she moves around and then climbs up on.

When Ann is there, she takes out Legos and all of the children, including Aakriti, really like to play with them. Aakriti especially likes the Lego toys that are animal figures and she holds them and looks at them alot. She also likes to look at what the older children are doing and playing and imitate them. One time, Anne was playing some acrobatic games with an older girl. When she was done, Aakriti came to her, took Anne's hands and placed her feet on Anne's legs just like the older girl had done.

Aakriti loves to have her belly tickled and she loves to be held and danced with. She is definitely in the right family when it comes to dance! There will be no shortage of that for her with me!! :)

Apparently Aakriti also loves chocolate. If she its it on her own, she literally gets it all over herself. A bath in chocolate...hmmmm....definitely something her Uncle Jason would relate to, and unfortunately for me (I am into healthy eating), between her daddy and grammy, confired chocoholics, I think that she will be well taken care of in the chocolate department, at least behind my back!

In addition to tickling, she loves other sensory games like having her neck puffed on (this is what they are playing in the video). And Anne says that Aakriti is really happy when someone talks to her and shows her things. She also likes to play chase with the other children, as long as no one runs her down. She doesn't like that too much, but then who would? :)

If Aakriti gets upset or is sad, Anne sings a song for her to calm her down and it does calm her. I thinks that Aakriti really like music and singing. I bet she will even like Grammy's singing! That is one of the great things about being a grandma. Grammy's grandkids don't realize it when she sings the songs wrong! They just feel the love that she is singing with, and that makes the music for them (for those of you reading who don't know this, Grammy is quite tone deaf).

Though at 18 months, Aakriti is not talking, she does make baby sounds such as "tha, him, de" and so on, so she is trying. Anne feels that alot of the children in the orphanage have developmental delays because they are not getting the love and security of having their own family.

Anne has been speaking English to Aakriti since she knows that Aakriti will be coming to California.

Aakriti knows her name well and responds to it when she is called. So we will very slowly and gently be transitioning her into the name Uma. I just can't imagine how it would be to have your entire world turned upside down, even your name! We will definitely be getting the guidance of a therpist and/or parenting coach to help us make the changes lovingly and sensitively.

She does not have her own bed and sleeps whereever with the other children. I wonder if she has to struggle for a space at times? This, then, will call for sensitivity too. As per Indian tradition, and the parenting style of attachment therapy (as well as advice from other adoptive parents), Aakriti will sleep with us. However, I think that I will also get her her own bed that we will sidecar next to our bed so that she knows that she has her own bed too, if she wants to be there.

Anne was so very kind to take the time to write to us in detail to help us know our daughter. After reading her mail, I had this feeling that I had been starving and she just gave me a satisfying meal. The only problem is that now I am hungry for more!

This truely is for me, the most difficult part of the entire adoption journey. We are so close and yet so far. Thanks to this Divine being Anne, the waiting can be a bit more bearable.