Dancing Machine, Dancing Machine

The last 30 seconds of the video make the whole thing more than worthwhile. Observe the rhythmic stylings of the next Beyonce - albeit a modest, fully-dressed version.

New Experience

Yesterday was a big guys' day out for the Yeager boys because we had to go make our pinewood derby cars for upcoming races. While I was looking forward to it on the one hand (as evidenced by the fact that I still have the derby car from my scout days), I was also concerned how taking that time away from the house would impact my relationship with Cassidy. I didn't know if she withdraw and distance herself or excitedly greet me (didn't really care how the boys fared with her). I was also concerned about compounding things by going straight from hours away from home to plugging directly into the Cardinals' NFL playoff game.

I can happily report that Cassidy was happy to see all of us, and she even seemed very intent to spend time with me. As I sat on the floor watching the game, she hovered around me, rarely leaving the room. While that was all well and good, I was concerned that if she remained in my proximity, I might inadvertently scare her. You can try to contain the emotions, but you never know when a slip up might occur. I had been very mindful of that over the last 10 weeks... but last night's game was exceptional!!

It's one thing for your team win a game, but it's another thing for your team to embarrass the opponent. Arizona just destroyed Carolina, and in the process of annihilating those poor Panthers, I slipped... with Cassidy sitting two feet in front of me... as she was looking directly at me. I yelled, "YEAH!" and threw both of my arms in the air as if to signal "touchdown." I then came back to my senses and remembered that my sensitive little Cassidy was sitting so very close. Before my eyes could pan down from the screen to see her, I heard her yell gibberish and experienced the joy of watching my little girl raise her arms as I had! She had the biggest smile on her face, too.

Of course, it was also great because my boys love to hear me get into a football game. To date, the hardest Zachary has ever laughed was when Arizona played Dallas earlier this season. After I was done going crazy and the laughter died down, Zachary said, "Do it again..." So now it's kind of fun for me to listen to the hardy guffaws outlast my emotional outbursts. So I had the additional joy of listening to Jake laugh two rooms away.

What a great day! Derby cars with the boys and then football watching with Cass.

I Have Arrived!

You now see what I've been waiting for! I couldn't hope for more - besides her being free of the "vascular anomalies." I'm pretty close to being exactly where I've wanted to be with her. Truth be told, I don't care if I ever reach that mountain top. This is good enough for me. As of last night, I was able to send her to dream land by laying her on my chest. She knows me by name. She freely gives me hugs and her version of fist bumps. She actively seeks to wrap me around her finger. What more could a daughter's dad ask for?!

So what if she doesn't want to lay on me or near me at 2:00 in the morning...?! I don't want anyone laying near me at that time of night anyway!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

A little time has gone by since my last post, and I do apologize for that. It really is my intention to update this regularly, but the road to somewhere nasty is paved with good intentions, right? To catch you up to speed in a nutshell, there has been good and bad and ups and downs. If you're able to step away from the immediacy of minute-to-minute, you will see a huge leap forward! In the last week, Cassidy really has warmed to me. She fist bumps now (which she learned strictly by observing the other children doing it), and she even gave me a single kiss on the cheek last weekend (none since)! Last night, she even gave me the Mommy treatment. What is the Mommy treatment? Whining at me any time I put her down. Of course, the reasons are pretty different. She likes being held by Mommy for the peace and love of it. She wants me to pick her up because she's a daredevil/thrill seeker. She finally figured out that I am the human roller coaster. She likes being hoisted into the air and riding on my shoulders as I gallop through the house (in the house only, though). She even likes being flipped in my arms (which Shari doesn't like watching). She likes riding on my foot as I walk around, and she likes being spun around, albeit slowly. The rough part for me is that once I do anything like that for her, every other kid in the house wants to do the same thing. Let me tell you that there is a huge difference in weight between a 23-month-old, undersized girl and an almost-nine-year-old, oversized boy! I think I'm probably an inch shorter than I used to be just by virtue of my spine being compacted by the resident food vacuum sitting on my shoulders...

Okay, I confess. It's not all about the acrobatics. She also wants me to pick her up because I'll hook her up with the peppercorn potato chips. (She likes things with a little kick...)

Below is a rather long three-minute video of Cass' first Christmas. I recorded and posted the whole thing mostly to showcase just how long it took her to work through one present. As a bonus, you will also get to hear lots of happy screams from the other kids as well as me correcting Jake... who, as I found out moments after the filming stopped, was actually in the right. Enjoy.

So Christmas was exactly what the doctor ordered for us. While I'm certainly not equal to Mommy in Cassidy's little eyes, she has certainly warmed up to me. She has napped on my chest. I can now put her down for night-nights without having to trap her on her side in my arms. She reacts enthusiastically when I get home from work. She can say "dadda" now, and she is actually talking about me when she says it. I know some people didn't understand or appreciate our decision to stay home for Christmas, I'll never regret it, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat. Next year, we can give her the customary traveling Christmas experience...

Mystery Solved

For weeks I have been wondering, "What is the deal?!" I've wondered, "When is Cassidy going to commit to liking me...?" We've played well together one moment only to have her stare at me with the look of terror the next. I've had her rolling with tickles only to have her stop without warning and slap at me like she was ready to fight. I've had her practically leap out of my arms to get back to Shari. I've had her greet me with a smile when I get home from work only to have her treat me like I have cooties by the time I get my coat off. Well I identified the problem on Saturday.

The problem is my wife. On Saturday, she had to run errands for most of the day, so I was left to care for the entire brood... by myself. As usual, Cassidy cried as she was handed over to me. As usual, she cried as Mommy went out the door. As usual, she was done crying by the time Shari had pulled out of the driveway. I didn't hear another cry for the rest of my alone time with her. She wasn't clingy, and she wasn't whiney. Actually, she was generally content. Occasionally, she would wrap her arms around my legs to let me know she wanted to be picked up... just like she does to Shari. When it was nap time, she went down without a single whimper. (It was the first time I didn't have to rock her by trapping her on her side while holding her!) As a matter of fact, I was even able to get her to go back to sleep when she was rudely awakened by Zachary (sometimes the boy has only one range of volume... loud and louder). When she woke up, she was even happy to see me! It went so well that even when Shari got home, she was not quick to dive out of my arms. When we sat on the couch four feet apart, Cassidy did not scamper over to where Shari was. It was amazing.

Of course, that was Saturday, and then there has been every day since then. I'm surprised I was able to share the last paragraph with you because it seems so long ago to me. Unlike the heavenly nap night-night experience of Saturday, last night's experience resulted in unsuccessful experimentation and tough love. "What did you do...?" you're wondering. Well, as she was crying, I decided to see what blowing in her mouth would do... since she's not an itty-bitty who would lose her breath as a result. That didn't go so well. While it did manage to shorten her cries, she seemed to get more hacked off... a little more quietly.

After a minute of that experiment, I decided to try putting her on the floor and then picking her up once she calmed down. She didn't stop crying until I picked her back up. When she started to cry again, I set her back down. When I picked her back up again, she was done with the crying, and she went right to sleep. (Of course, she ended up in our bed yet again after midnight.)

It's tough to gauge where adoption/orphanage trauma ends and terrible-twoedness begins. Since I knew she would immediately shut off the tears as soon as she came in contact with Shari, I was willing to gamble and assess that I was dealing with nothing more than a temper tantrum. She has those. Don't we all.

That's all for now.

Tough Patch

Over the last few days, we've found ourselves in a little bit of a downward trend. Cassidy is back to being a little more fearful and clingy as she was several weeks ago. She is also more extreme with her emotions. There is a lack of carryover peace from one activity to the next. By that I mean she can be fine if you're doing something that she likes, and you're screwed if you aren't. Last night, she loved me if I was walking her up and down the stairs (over and over and over again), feeding her, or putting lotion on her (did you know Asians are prone to dry skin?). If I wasn't doing those things, she really didn't want to have anything to do with me. I guess the good news is that she seemed a little more content in general after I did all of the stair walking than she was prior to that. I got to enjoy her most intense sleep-time crying ever. She finally quieted down when she decided to go #2 just before completely dozing off (not a good combo). Miraculously, she slept through the diaper change. I think I used up all of my mojo on that, though, because she ended up waking up around 3:30 and joining us in bed... again.

I am looking forward to the day that she no longer cries as she leaves Mommy's gravitational pull. I'm looking forward to her no longer crying herself to sleep in my arms. In the meantime, I try to marvel and wonder about her idiosyncracies. For example, when she cries in my arms, she tends to cover up her wide-open mouth with her arm. It's like she's screaming, but she doesn't want to be heard. It makes me wonder if this came from the orphanage experience and what that experience was exactly. A funnier behavior is when she wants me to read her a book (or three words off of one page), she kneels down to look and listen. After a sentence or two (or a word or two), she'll get up take the book from me, walk a couple steps, turn around, hand me the book, and repeat the process multiple times.

The excellent news of yesterday was that we finally received Cassidy's official citizenship document. She's bonafied American now.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I don't know what you are thankful for, but we are thankful to have our family together after three years of waiting! We are thankful that Cassidy is getting to experience her first Thanksgiving! We are thankful for progress!

Since I last wrote, lots of things have taken place! I have put Cassidy to bed six times. The first time she seemed to cry forever. She cried so much that I made a point to time how long she cried the second time... 24 minutes. Then she only cried for 10 minutes the next time. There was actually an attempt after that which I'm not counting because I didn't think she was ready for bed when the process was initiated, so I handed her off to her mother in order for her to enjoy the fruits of her insistence that she was ready. The next time I tried, which was last Saturday, she didn't cry at all. That sounds like we made it over the last hurdle but she was back to crying on Sunday night. She only cried for about three minutes that night. The great thing about those events was that she slept through the night in her own crib three of those times. (Those would be the only three times she made it through the night in her own crib.)

Shari was so desperate for a completely undisturbed night of sleep a few nights ago that she really wanted to test that connection. Well, I'd only put her to bed on a weeknight once before, and that seemed to pose a problem. There is something about me not being around during the day that works against her receptiveness to me. She cried and cried... but I am wise beyond my years... or just lucky. Against Shari's judgment, I had allowed her to continue to hold a little toy bottle while I rocked her. After so much crying, I decided to test a little tough love. I took the bottle from her... which really hacked her off. (I relearned that she has a higher gear above the routine, ordinary sob.) I looked her in the eyes and said, "Shhh." When she quieted momentarily, I handed her the toy. When she started to cry again, I took the bottle away again and said, "Ahhh..." I repeated, "Shhh." When she quieted again, I handed her the toy. She didn't cry again, and then she was asleep within two minutes. She's a very smart girl. (She gets that from Shari.)

So have we gotten over the final hurdle? Well, even if we had, I imagine that she'd reserve the right to climb back over the hurdle again, so we could enjoy some of the unpleasant stuff. From that standpoint, I guess the final hurdle will be the end of the regressing. Other than that, the hurdle will fall whenever she no longer acts as though she is settling for me. It's either that or perhaps when my holding her calms her as consistently as Shari's holding her. She's so fond of Mama that she stops sobbing if she so much as thinks she's being handed over to Shari. The act of handing her over takes her from red-faced wailing to silence and sighs of relief in no time at all. It's interesting to observe... and still moderately deflating.

But enough about me, you're here to read about Cassidy. She has endured a lot of medical junk lately. Just two days ago (or was it yesterday?), she survived three therapist visits. The most interesting things we learned is that she verbally grades out at a nine-month-old level (she's 22 months old now), and her motor skills are at a year-old level. Neither of which is insurmountable for such a smart girl. Last week, she got to experience two trips to Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital to be evaluated by doctors who are a lot smarter than we are. We've been told that it's highly likely that the Chinese diagnosed her incorrectly but that it's probably still a vascular issue. In English, the good news in that no one is thinking cancer since it has been stable in size since birth. The bad news is that it probably won't go away without treatment. The doctors are in the process of setting up an imaging session at Barnes in order to determine just exactly what we're dealing with and exactly what the treatment needs to consist of.

What else? I guess the most interesting tidbit occurred on the 19th when I was left to take care of the kids. First of all, it's interesting whenever Shari leaves the house, because Cassidy seems to automatically default to me as the go-to person. If she's upset and crying, I'm suddenly in the position to calm her down immediately. The downside is that I get put back in my place the second Mama returns home. Anyway, on this particular night, most of us were sitting on the couch, and Cass was sitting on my left knee, facing away from me towards the television. Katie was sitting immediately to my right, practicing writing her name on a Magnadoodle. For the most part, Cass and I were watching "America's Funniest Home Videos." She was wide awake, totally focused on the show, and completely content as she sat on my knee and leaned forward into my left hand placed around her belly.

Katie asked me to look at what she'd written. I looked to my right, told her she needed to switch a couple letters, and looked back in the direction of Cassidy. In the span of roughly five-to-ten seconds, she had gone from wide-eyed awake to being asleep in my hand. She then slept on my chest for the next half hour. It was sweet! Then she woke up screaming. Not so sweet...

Don't be alarmed, though. We do not have a narcoleptic on our hands. The doctor assured us that it is highly likely that she is just now decompressing and coming down off the high-alert mode she's been on for a month now. She's simply that relaxed.

Enjoy your Thanksgiving. Appreciate your family! Even the ones you normally don't appreciate...