Today Ayana had her check up at the brand new International Adoption Clinic at the Children's Hospital, and holy moly are they ever thorough! We are going to be testing her for all sorts of fun things, and we will be bringing her in at various times during her first year home! Wonderful! She is doing great, tall and thin just like her sister. Ayana's roots are Oromo and that means she will likely be quite tall. It took a very long time though, we were there for an hour and a half, so by the end of it she had had enough.
Has anyone out there had to deal with issues of your baby scratching your face off? I mean, not the little bitty accidental scratch, I mean the intentional psycho look in the eyes clawing of your face. This is becoming a huge problem, and currently I am the only one she does it with. It is VERY frustrating to say the least, and my whole thing today and yesterday was not to react and to keep her at a distance so she does not have the opportunity to do it. It is very sad to me, and it is not the scratching that bothers me, it is this look that comes over her fact that is upsetting. I know it is probably just a phase of defiant "what are you going to do about THIS" as she rips my cheek open. Okay, I'll be honest, it hurts my feelings. There I said it. Pathetic, eh? The other thing (which is not done in a angry way) is biting my shoulder extremely hard with her sharp little nashers! That's not a big deal, as I know she is just thinking, I wonder what this will feel like. ANYway. The other thing about the scratching, as I am asking for advice here, is that it happens at the weirdest times, for EG, we are playing and she is having a great time, and I go to hug her which I do, Oh, a MILLION times a day, and she smiles, and then suddenly she gets this glazed over expression in her eyes, you know, like when they were just told not to do something and then they very purposefully do it again while watching you with that "look", you know, and then she rakes her hands like claws on my face. Not like I am saying "no" or taking something away, this is out of the blue when she is happy. It is very mysterious to me. Regan too, he has witnessed it too. I will keep going with the non reaction as I think that is probably why she is doing it, as the first few times I gave a VERY firm "No scratching!" and she of course melted into a million tears and then immediately tried to do it again. Sigh. So any words of wisdom I will gladly take them.
The upswing of today's loong time at the Dr's was that she virtually had no nap this afternoon so she was fast asleep by 615pm!!!! Yay!!!
Have a good one!
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4 comments:
Yes Gabbi does the intentional scratching the face off. Not sure what thats about. If we sternly tell her no she breaks down into tears. But then she does it again. It's for attention I know but geez!
My neice did it as well. What worked for my sister was to say NO, very firmly, take her hnd and rub it on her face and say gentle. That worked for a while but eventually my neice ignored her and did it again. My sis just finally would say NO, and get up and walk away. She would cry and crawl after her but in a way my sis would ignore her for a bit. It worked well. I am not sure if this would be the best approach with an adopted babe though....
Hey Lisa
Nathaniel did that for the first few months home (and hitting too)...mostly in the face. At one point I would find myself pulling back because I knew he would try to do it (mostly at nap times). But that only lasted maybe into the 2nd month home. He rarely (and I do mean rarely...I can't remember the last time) does that anymore.
No biting yet..hmmm hoping he doesn't get into that.
Louise
Judah doesn't do the scratching but he is back to his hitting. And he only tends to do it to me. We too will be playing and laughing and then all of a sudden he gets this 'evil' look in his eyes and swings at me. Now I tell him once that if he hits me again he's going in time out. Because he is old enough and does understand not to hit us...but he just does it. And I don't know why. But yes...it also hurts my feelings. Craig think's i'm too sensitive but I think that's easy for him to say since Judah RARELY hits him at all. I really don't know what to tell you in terms of 'advice' since we're goign through the same thing over here..just with hitting. It seems that no amount of hugging/kissing will make it go away....hmmmmm....
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