Adoption Training Complete.

KG and I finished the training, which started last night. It was from 9:00 to 3:00 today. We got out an hour earlier then expected. We now know everything there is to know about adoption and will be perfect parents who won't make any mistakes. Yeah right. Oh how I wish that were true!
The training was definitely better today and I felt like I walked away learning something. The strange thing for both of us is that we found ourselves associating it with Flower more then the new one. Some of the things that I learned...one was that we did so much right on how we approached Flower coming home. Even though she was 2 years old, she was a new born to us. Maybe not in how she acted, but in how we became a family. Everything changed for us just as it would a new born and we treated things accordingly. They say you should do that with any child no matter what age they are when they join your family, even a teenager. Sometimes your expectations for a child joining your family are way to high because the child is older and you have to treat it and yourselves as though it's a newborn. You need the same amount of time, away from work for example, to adjust and everything being new. Just because you get a two, three, or eight year old, doesn't mean you don't need to take maternity and paternity leave. The child shouldn't be put directly into to school or daycare, etc., just as you wouldn't do that with a 2 day old. It also reassured some of the questions we had regarding attachment to a new born rather than a two year old. We in fact do need to plan on forming that attachment just as we did with her. Mother's who give birth had 9 months of attachment. It won't just happen the moment we hold our child. And the baby might feel attached before we do. Uur attachment is just as important. There will definitely be a period of time that we don't allow anyone but us to hold our child, lots of skin to skin contact with their ear to your heart, staring into their eyes(they call it kangaroo care), not letting anyone else feed or change diapers for even longer. These are all things that can't be decided until the child is here but we already know it will be a minimum of two weeks. We also recognize that not everyone does these things and doesn't think it's necessary but these are the things that are important to us. We also learned that a new born can have just as many attachment issues as an older child and it may just come out later. No matter what age you get your child, they will question where they came from and everything that goes along with that.
I was surprised to find myself feeling emotional at the discussion of the birth parents. I just have such an overwhelming amount of respect for them and can't imagine what they must be feeling. It makes me more excited to have a relationship with them. They will be an extended part of our family. It also made me more willing to except anything they need from me to help them get through this incredibly hard time in their lives.
I learned a lot of things that I need to change in how I deal with Flower and I am so thankful for that because we can always do better. Sometimes you just need a reminder course. All in all I think it was beneficial.
Flower partied with her grandparents while we were at the training. Apparently she didn't sleep well. That seems to be a pattern there. I'm not sure why. When she slept at my mom's and my sister's she slept a little closer to normal. I'm sure it's just a change of scenery for her a it disrupts her schedule a bit. I just feel bad when I hear that she didn't fall asleep till 2:30 am! Yikes. I wouldn't be happy if she did that here. That's just not fun when you want to sleep. She had fun today though. She went to the Meridian Dairy Days. Last night she went to the parade. Today was the carnival. She got to ride on a Merry-go-round and apparently some other rides. She is going to get me some video and pictures I think so I will make a post about that then. They dropped Flower off with my parents to bring her to me. The second I saw Flower she yelled, "I HAD FUN!" Not "hi". Not "I missed you". "I HAD FUN" That's a good sign. I'm so glad that we have people here that we can trust. Grandparents are great! :)
I have to share this photo because I am so proud of Flower and well, it's just cool! Her two hardest things to get the hang of in the water were opening her eyes under water and blowing bubbles out her nose. She did them both at the same time tonight and I got it on camera! I was thrilled!