Three Steps Forward, Two Steps Back...

I am learning that this is the nature of attachment work with children who suffer with attachment disorders.

We are home from Colorado. We got home late Saturday night. We had such a wonderful time with my step-mom, my sister, and her family... that will be another post... but Kelly certainly showed signs of distress at the upheaval of her routine, and we all paid the price for it in one way or another.
Now that we're home, things are a little better, but we're still seeing signs of anxiety and aggression, so back we go to keeping her in the pouch the majority of the day, with minimal freedom or control for her.
She has been raging off and on this morning since I put her in the pouch, which I am so glad for... not because I like to see my baby girl upset (no, no, no) but because it confirms my suspicions that she has spiraled out-of-control again, because if being close to me causes her to fly into fits of rage, then close to me is exactly where she needs to be.

While we were in Colorado, the most glaring manifestation of her issues was aggression towards the other children and the animals. It seemed she was constantly hitting or biting someone... sometimes because she was mad, but oftentimes, for no apparent reason at all.
She pulled my sister's lab puppy's tail on several occasions. (Maggie is such a good puppy- never sneered, growled, or even flinched, when she had every right to- Kelly pulls hard!) Since my sister's other two dogs are Aussies and they have no real tails to pull, Kelly simply hit them or pulled at their fur and skin. No wonder Chili got a little snippy with her. (Don't worry, she never made contact with Kelly, but she did her best to let Kelly know she better back off.)
I tried to keep the dogs "off limits" to Kelly, but because I was not as consistent with her as I should have been, there were several occasions where she managed to get to the dogs despite my efforts to keep her from them.
I admit, I was rather lazy with working with her while we were there, so this is the price we all pay for my laziness. I think I had a vacation mentality where parenting was concerned while I was there. I just wanted to hang out with my sister and enjoy her and her family, and not have to be "on" 24/7 with Kelly like I normally would be. I knew this trip might cause some disruption to Kelly's progress, so I figured we'd just get back to our routine when we got home. I think the problem is that when you parent in "vacation mode," while you don't "do" as much as you normally would, your child still does what she does, so you can only overlook or ignore so much... finally, it gets to a point where you get frustrated, so you become reactive instead of proactive. For me, that just is never good. It is much more draining on every level.

I do have to say, Kelly did so well in so many other aspects, especially considering how much she's had to deal with in her short little life, so it's not all bad. We saw lots of smiles, eye contact was good for the most part, and she showed appropriate affection towards me and others (preferred me- wasn't inappropriately affectionate with others), so all progress was not lost. It's mostly the control issues that I am seeing her battle for again, but like I said, I knew this would probably be the case, so I'm not surprised.

What did surprise me was how Kelly initially reacted to coming home... I wasn't sure how she would be with Clint, but she was very happy to see him and has exchanged lots of hugs and kisses with him. And she seemed so happy to come back home to her little nest... almost as if going away and coming back made her realize
this is her home...
this is where we always come back to...
this is where she belongs.

It will most likely be a long week as we work to regain the ground we lost... pray for us if/when you think of it, and I'll update with some pictures and stories from some of our more fun times of our week in Colorado. Oh, and watch for pictures of Kelly's first Easter too!

Blessings~