A New Day

On Thursday morning, it was as if someone flipped a switch and our shy and timid little girl came out of her shell.  We started the day with about 15 minutes of constant smiles, giggles and babbling.  By the afternoon, she was clapping her hands, giving us kisses and waving and saying 'bye bye.'  In the days before, she would rather sleep than look at us and would cry if we changed her position on our lap or looked at her wrong.  Now she likes to rip our glasses off of our faces and thinks it's the funniest thing ever.  She had a preference for snuggling up on our shoulders under our chin, but it was more of a way to avoid eye contact with us than anything else.  What a relief to see her little personality start to emerge.  I hate to say it but her lack of interaction with us combined with the assortment of self soothing behaviors that she exhibited in her first few days with us had institutional autism on my mind.  What we were really looking at was one frightened and grieving little girl who was coping in the only way she knew how.  What I see when I look at her now is how brave she is to trust us a little more each day and allow us the privilege of being her parents.