A Wonderful Week

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Everyone has left and Thanksgiving week was truly wonderful. We had 8 for for dinner on Tuesday. We had 6 for dinner on Wednesday. we ended up with 16 here for both Thanksgiving dinner and for a brunch on Friday. Friday night we had 10 for dinner. After I took our family from Atlanta to the airport at 6:15 this morning we were back to just DW, (S), and myself.

We had such a great time. There was little to no stress during the week in spite of so many people being here. Luckily the people in the family who tend to create the most stress were not here.

(S) has been horrible today. She has been very obstinate and is not doing anything she is told. We are not sure what is causing this but it is certainly unusual behavior for her. She seemed to have fun the whole time everyone was here. She also seemed a little bit relieved when she woke up this morning and everyone was gone. She had been getting a lot more attention then normal over the week, but she wasn't getting all of the attention. Our little nephew is just 19 months old, and he was certainly getting his share of the attention. (S) did a great job of sharing her toys with him while he was here so that was good. She even got a kleenex and wiped his nose for him once when she saw it was running.

It is days like today that make us wonder what is going on in her head. What she is thinking, and why she is being so obstinate. Granted, she is only 4 and according to her therapist she is emotionally more like a two year old because of the two missed years of nurturing. How long is it going to take her to catch up though? She has to eventually I would think. So what else should we expect. It just becomes frustrating when we can't determine what the problem is, and she is unable to verbalize it in any sensible terms.

She certainly sees everyone as her family, but she still mentions her brothers on occasion. We don't know what she is thinking about them as far as whether or not they are her family too. We really need to talk to the therapist about that. When she brings up her brothers, we are never really sure how to respond. Soemtimes it is very benign, and other times not so much.

I don't want to get too negative here. As I said to start out, this was a truly wonderful week. I really wish more family could have been here, but I look forward to the next time we have a lot of family here. I am hoping it will be this summer, and I am hoping it is to officially welcome (S) into our family as a full-fledged and legal member.
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