Just a little smoke

So, I'm still fuming over that phone call from last week... Oh, it's just a little smoke now, but I still think that the way that person interacted with me doesn't deserve the word "professional". She might be one of the most knowledgeable people in adoption, but the way she talked and related to me was a (huge) bit too self-righteous for my taste . When you call someone because you're in need of help, you're exhausted and you're crying most nights, them blaming you for just about eveything you did or didn't do, without any kind of acceptable assessment, will NOT promote a good relationship, no matter how good the resource is. Knowledge without communication skills, and that includes real listening, is absolutely useless. It's not the client's responsibility to make sense of the blame. The social worker's Code of ethics is quite clear on that matter:

A social worker must do everything in his power to establish a relationship of trust between himself and his client. To this end, the social worker must, in particular a) refrain from practising his profession in an impersonal manner, b) respect, in all his interventions, the values and convictions of his client.

A social worker must not make an assessment of his client's situation and must not perform any acts involving him unless he has sufficient data to judge the situation clearly and to act with a minimum of efficiency in the interest of his client.

The only good thing that phone all did was to encourage us to be even more watchful of the effets of what we do or don't do with Yummy. Ove the last week, we've only had 2 nights with long wakings, and curiously, they both happened after days when Yummy didn't leave the hous. The other nights were more "normal", with 2-4 short wakings. The problem really seem to be that she is now so used to falling asleep with one of us touching her that she can't do it on her own on a regular basis. And last night, she was up for an hour and a half, wide awake. If Dad left the room, she would get up, scream and cry, but there was no tears, no sweating, and no distress whenever he came back in the room, as she would then stop. Now THAT looks more to me like a little manipulation than a reaction to a trauma!

So our baby turned 13 months yesterday. It's just amazing how far she has come since we first met her last October!

She is now crawling all over and taking a few wobbly steps on her own. Books are still her favorite toys, she now "reads" them with the right side up, and is pointing and "naming" images more and more. She's even doing the sounds of some animals she recognizes! She's using 5-6 signs, and saying 5-6 words, and babbling a whole lot of other ones we don't understand.

But most amazingly, she just started to really cuddle up to me. She was doing it before, but only for a few seconds at a time, mostly her own terms. And I recently noticed that she almost always used her arm to keep a distance whenever I picked her up facing me, even when she had just hurt herself, or was calling for me. So, we've been working on that, dancing to music around the living room, which she adores, and "accidentaly" pulling her close to me. And yesterday, she looked like she suddenly allowed herself to actually enjoy cuddling up to me, getting close and resting her head on my shoulder for much longer periods of time, patting my arm. That was worth many, many sleepless nights...