Part One

Bedtime/bath/getting dressed:
For our girls these were very intimate, family type experiences & they were completely terrified & traumatized that we (strangers) would want to invade their space. They screamed with terror when we tried to undress them. Copying each other was very common for these early weeks. We never actually did give them a bath in Ethiopia & had Eskedar dress them the day we left.

At bedtime they screamed until they fell asleep in our arms. Once in the US they finally got used to being bathed & dressed by the end of the first week. We found out that they screamed when they were changed & bathed at the care center when they first arrived (this was in July...so they had been there for almost 6 months--a really long time). This did not surprise us once we saw the remote village they come from...children ran around in a shirt only, that looked like they had worn for months. I don't think they bathed or changed clothes often, or possibly never.

Language:
The language issues affect everything. We did what we have heard others suggest. During the 8 hours on the road visiting birth family, we asked our driver Solomon for every word we could think of & wrote it down phonetically in a way that we could read later. We used this a lot.

I have a sister who was adopted at age 4 & I remember she loved to look at Richard Scarry's word book, letting us name everything, so I took this large book all the way to Ethiopia. My expectations were off by about 4 weeks. They were not interested in hearing English words for things until then (I know some other kids have been much earlier, though). We used the Amharic we knew & of course some signs, but it was pretty hard for the first month.

Bedtime routine:
As soon as we arrived home, we began a bedtime routine of dinner, bath, potty & teeth, book, rock, bed. It took me almost a week of reading a book with both girls screaming on my lap every single bedtime, for them to finally be quiet & enjoy the book. Then they wanted the same book every time. Jesse Bear, what will you wear? They memorized the whole thing.

I highly recommend rhyming style books for the first few weeks at home. They find such comfort in the lilting way a rhyming book reads. They also have memorized & fallen in love with Polar Bear Polar Bear what do you hear? & the two companion books, Brown Bear & Panda Bear. They did not like the rocking at all, either, but we persisted, because it is so important (about 15 minutes per girl) & then laid them down to sleep.

(to be continued)