Dentist Visit and Ages

Today was a big day for our girls. It was the day of THE DENTIST.

Previous to this the girls had learned the terms: Family, Friend, and Stranger. Today, they had to learn there was another catagory: Doctor/Dentist. I will get into the previous catagories on another post about Attachment. Hopefully, I will be able to do that this morning.

The little boys are happily playing dressup, the girls are watching Magic Schoolbus, Cassidy is building his dinosaur world and listening to The Odyssey - history, and Dane is off doing a two km run, plus, Colt is at work. All is quiet on the home front - for now. I would have posted last night, but for my dear friend, Corrie, calling me and chatting with me into the wee hours. She brought her little boy home a week after we did. It is wonderful because he can speak 90% English so he is able to enlighten us with a lot of information about the Transition Home, and our girls. Our girls will be another topic for another time.

Last night, I sat the girls down and chatted with them about today the dentist visit. When I had taken them to the doctor, it was ten days after we had gotten home and I simply told them we would see the doctor. But now, we have had talks about different kinds of people and I had seen Gadisae's reactions to different people (again, another post).

As I reminded them of Family, Friends, Strangers - Mesai immediately mimed the different body languages of each: Hug for Family; Hand for Friend; miming pushing away for Stranger.

So then I said, Not Friend, Family, or Stranger - Doctor is: and I had just 'stood there', showing them there was no body contact, and no pushing away. Mesai immediately mimed the different actions. She picks things up very quickly. Her language may be quite low, but she is smart.

So then I asked her to tell Gadisae in Amharic what I was saying. This she did. It is great to have a 50% translator. 50% of the time she can't take my words and translate them, but it helps that I get some done!

The girls got on their pretty clothes and I did their hair. Now you may say they have no hair. Oh, but yes they do. Tiny, weeny little curls, and if I take good care of them they look beautiful. Every time they have a bath, I just pour water over their heads. I only wash their hair about once a week. As little black girls they do not produce the oil that we do, and so I can dry out their hair by overwashing it.

When I have wet their hair, I then add a wonderful hair cream - Blended Cutie - Butter Me Up. It is the same cream I used to rub into their hands and it removed Mesai's terribly dry skin in a matter of days. This cream adds shine and conditioner to their hair. It brings out the tiny little curls. In the last month, since we have had them, their hair has grown a fair bit. When we got them they were almost bald. Mesai now has a wonderful head of bumpy curls.

I used to tell them a little song and rub their heads: Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear. Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair. Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn't fuzzy, was he? They would giggle. Now I say: Fuzzy Wuzzy was a girl, Fuzzy Wuzzy has some curls!

I am always telling them how beautiful their hair is. So long. So curly. So beautiful. And they beam when I tell them this.

The funny thing is people always wonder what a little black child's hair feels like. But it is not polite to touch. *smile* But I can touch. *grin* All the time, I am rubbing their heads. Cuddling them and fondling their curls, massaging their heads. And they love it. If I am doing this to Mesai, Gadisae will come up and ask me to do her head. It is double purpose: I get to feel the growth and dream about doing hair, and we have a skin to skin bonding moment. *smile*

Rubbing in the Cream

As I am rubbing in their cream, I am always saying, "So beautiful, konjo." What I am seeing is that this hair time, as little as there is, has become a special time. By the time they actually have hair they will associate hair fixing time as mummy and daughter loving time. I think for people who are reading and have tiny ones and are concerned about how to keep them still, this is the way to go. Just begin with rubbing their heads, as you rub the creams in. Say sweet words and they will hear the tone and learn to respond with warmth towards this hands-on head and hair time. Our girls love it.

As an English person, I have to work to being hands on. It is not my way. That is why having their hair growing helps me: I can't stop massaging them when they walk by. *grin* It is causing me to become a much more touchy/feely person.

Putting in Hair Pretties

Me and My Girl

All Dressed Up and Pretty For Town

Our girls are so appreciative of anything they are given. They don't act deprived and they don't act crazy when I give new things. They simply smile big and say, "So beeeeeutiful."

We headed to the dentist and I prepped the girls again on how to behave. As I went in they very quietly went and sat on the waiting room chairs. I filled in forms and they saw the toys in the corner.


Mesai came over to me and said, "Beautiful," about the toys. I asked her if she wanted to play. She did. She was simply asking permission in her little way. The girls played for a few minutes before we were called in.

The dental office is one I have gone to for the last 10 years. I was impressed with how respectful everyone was. I saw heads pop out of cubicles and rooms as we passed, and little comments like: how sweet, how cute, oh look!

But noone 'got in our face'. I hadn't even prepped them, as I should have done. As we got to the room the dental assistant asked who was first. Mesai shook her head, though she was cool with going. Gadisae grinned and nodded. Miss Bravery would go first. She hopped up in the chair and giggled in delight as the chair went: 'up'.


Mesai laughed and decided it looked like fun. Perhaps she would go sooner? "Gadisae finished? Mesai?" *laugh* No, not yet.


Gadisae loved it all. When the assistant showed her the tools she kept her hand out until she sprayed her with the water hose. Both girls had a big laugh when the vacuum 'burped' while inserted in their mouths, extracting the liquids.


Neither of them had cavities - Praise God!! We have no extended medical and so the bills would be our own. Mesai does have a real buildup of tartar in her mouth, but a lot of it has been removed over the last month of us brushing. They both have brown marks on the inside of their teeth. This is not decay and is not a problem. But since they came home, they have had a lot of blood while brushing. This has lessened to the point of nearly gone, but in the beginning it was enough to make me gag when I was brushing their teeth. This was due to the fact that they did not brush their teeth before they came here.

I will give a disclaimer to the following information: this is based on one visit and the teeth do *not* give a definite age. That said: The dentist figures that Mesai is just turned six. He thinks Gadisae is between four and five. Okay, so as he is saying all this I am telling him that I think he could be correct with Mesai. It lines up with what we see developmentally.

But I do not totally agree with Gadisae. He seemed determined that they would have new birthdates: "So now it is just a matter of choosing a birth date." Huh? Says who? "You can have your 4 1/2 birthday." What? Why?

I have spent a month with Gadisae. I have raised six kids. She is a girl. Girls are known to be more advanced than boys. I do not see her as much further than Briton developmentally. I do not believe that she is as much as 4 1/2. I would tend to lean firmly toward at most, 4 1/4. Not a big difference, you might say. Well, it is, when the dentist is determined she is 4-5.

Leaving the dentist office, I went shopping. As I passed the birthday supplies in the baking aisle, I paused to stop and think: Do I do a birthday for Mesai or not? If I do, how old is she turning? We have held on this one because we are not sure what to do.

She acts like she is turning 6, but there are so many reasons to allow her to 'be' five.

For instance, when I presented her with the puzzle, she began as if she was a three year old. When she had had time to learn, she advanced to moving through it like a five year old. When I asked her about colours and shapes, she had no clue. When I did a number test: she could understand 'what come before' meant, but 'minus', 'subtract', 'addition', all had no meaning to her. But upon the next question with 'minus', she understood, so she absorbs new concepts quite quickly.

Doing Math Evaluations

What I get from that is: I have a child who has the developmental skills of a 3-4 year old, but the capacity to learn quickly and bring herself up to a 5 year old level. But is it fair to her to 'call her six' because she quite likely is six (due to having just finished growing in her six year molars), when she has never had a chance to 'be' 3, 4, 5 like a typical child?

She is coming from a country where she had a lot of responsibility - life was not easy and it was not the life of a child. She did not learn imaginative play. She has not painted, played with playdough, dressed up like a giraffe, or done many of the things preschoolers do.




By 'making her six', even though on paper she is legally turning five this week, we then will end up putting higher expectations on her. Suddenly, she will be a Grade 1 student, expected to read words - not simply be at the age of learning her alphabet, colours, shapes, up, down, behind, and other basic concepts.

Does it harm her to be the 'best' in her age bracket when she eventually catches up? No, it would be to her advantage. But for the time being, she is a little girl who has missed out on so much of childhood, while having experiences that no child should have to go through. A child who deserves to be little for one extra year.

Having thought all this through we have decided to leave her FIVE. She will have her fifth birthday on Saturday and, if people say, "She doesn't look five." We will simply say, Yes, she is five. We do not need to explain to people her story. It doesn't really matter.

And that seems to make life so much simpler for everyone. If we were dealing with 2 or more years, it would be a different story. But after much, much, much contemplating, researching, reading, and talking, this is a decision we are comfortable with.

And as an aside, when we were in Ethiopia, we saw a cute little girl in Cloud 9. She was getting on the elevator with her Ethiopian parents. As a curiosity, I asked the mum how old she was. She was just about to turn five. She was exactly Mesai's height. So Mesai is not even extra tall. She just has a wisened face and a sharp mind. But then, as the oldest child, she has had more to 'think about' than her little sister.