Independence Day

For our first 4th of July together, we'll be apart. Rosie had asked to go to a bible camp that happens to occur this week. When she learned it was happening over the 4th of July, she complained a little so we gave her the choice to stay home. She wisely decided to go.

Now, her independence is making me a little nervous. This is her first trip away from us for more than two nights. I worry she won't make friends. I worry she'll be too controlling and get into trouble. I worry she'll get hurt.

I'm going to try to find independence form my worrying, though. She has been to this camp before so she knows what she's getting into. Yet, something very interesting happened in the last 24 hours that has made my worrying a little harder to push aside....

Mike's parents took Rosie for Friday night, and for the first time I didn't spend the entire time worrying about how she would do. In fact, the emotion that I couldn't shake while she was gone was a little sadness. I really missed her, and I kind of regretted having her go away for a night when she was heading to camp for a week so soon after. Long story short: I've started to lose my previous child-less independence. I'm attaching to her. I think that's great.

Rosie is also starting to show me that she's getting less personal independence from me as well. When we met Grandma and Grandpa at Red Lobster for dinner and the Rosie exchange, Grandma mentioned Rosie was too tired to get her jammies on Friday night. Rosie's eyes got big as she looked sheepishly at me, then at Grandma and said, "That's not good." Then she got a little down on herself for a bit, but she managed to pull out of it, finish her dinner, and even sneak a dessert out of the night.

As we walked out of the restaurant, Rosie rushed up to me to try to give me a zillion excuses for why she didn't put on jammies and do the other basic care tasks we expect of her. I simply said, I love you but I don't accept those excuses, Rosie. I know you can do all those things and more. I did add that visits might to grandparents, etc., might need to be shortened if she can't do these things without us. Then, we changed the subject, the entire night ended very happily. She showered and got into her jammies, and we watched two episodes of The Cosby Show until bed.

From my my lens, this means Rosie is starting to care that we get upset when she doesn't do what she needs to. At least a little bit. To quote her therapist, securely attached children seek their parents' approval and fear losing it. Children who suffer from Reactive Attachment Disorder lack any desire to gain or keep approval from adoptive parents mostly because their birth parents never proved they could be counted on to supply basic needs. Instead, Rosie learned to get what she needed her own way beginning at a young age, which makes our role seem almost unnecessary to her. She can get by on her own.

Oh, and Mike had promised to post a story from his time with her in June, but right now he's sitting beside me, working on a maze to put in Rosie's camp care package.