Good Days vs. Bad Days

It is really amazing to watch Rylee try to work out what her place here is. She has some really, really good days where she seems so comfortable, happy and affectionate. The best days are usually followed by a really bad day. She seems to be struggling with whether to jump in and accept her new life and family or whether she should hold back, protect herself and just observe. We get longer and longer glimpses of a lovable, affectionate, fun loving girl.

One of the hardest things so far has been for her to learn the concept of sharing. We have really had to work on this because she really felt that if we gave her something to eat say out of a box, then the entire box was hers and had a major tantrum if anyone else had some. If I cooked something she liked, the entire pan should be hers and we all should eat only the things she did not like. She cried inconsolably one day for at least 40 minutes because I gave her some pringles out of a can and then gave Hanna some out of the same can. So last night at dinner we made a big production of sharing all the food at dinner. She tried to gather everything to her side of the table, but we had each type of food only on one plate. She studied us sharing with each other and finally started helping herself to the things that were arranged around the table. By the end of dinner she was happily plucking food off of everyones dishes (with her fingers), but she had to still think very hard about if she would allow anyone to have slices of banana from the bowel that was in front of her. So I am not sure, but we may have just taught her that it is fine to stick her hands in and help herself to everyone else's food whenever she feels like it... We'll see...fortunately we have a few more weeks to work on this before we will be sharing meals with other people :)

Since we have been home Pat and I have been the lucky recipients of elaborate hand made invitations each night for a special dance performance, complete with announcers (pictured above) and newly created dance moves for us to ooh and aah over! Here are some photos from these nightly adventures: