Progress

I think William has made some major progress recently in attaching. He has always with drawn and become distant from us whenever we are around adults with brown skin. It is hard to explain, but it is very real. He gets this blank expression on his face, stops what he is doing, and starts moving in slow motion. It is hard, because we don't really know what he thinking or feeling. It is impossible to get any answers out of him, because when we ask, while he is like this, he will just answer yes to everything. I could ask him if he lives in a house of cheese and he would say yes. This is only true when he doesn't know the people, or there is a large crowd. Mandy had told us that some of the kids behave this way because of fear that we will leave them. Maybe she is right. In Uganda, he would only act this way around people from the home. I don't really know if it is that or him missing people from Uganda. Maybe it is a bit of both. At any rate, we went to a MLK event last night because some friends were playing music for it. We contemplated not going because of the reaction that William has, knowing there would be a crowd of brown people. We told him before we left what to expect, and set out for the auditorium. The entire night he was so comfortable. He was laughing with his daddy and sitting on his lap. He enjoyed the whole show, and had no problems when some of the adults wanted to talk to us afterward. It felt like such progress. It was so good to see him finally settling in and feeling some peace.

A couple of weeks ago he was working in the garden with his brother, and they had the following conversation. "Noah, did you know I live in America?" "Yes, William I live in America too." After some time William says, "I am very happy to be here." Noah asks, "Where, in the garden with me?" To which William replies, "No, in America with my family."

Yes, William we are very happy to have you here with us too.