faithjoyandlove: Happy Thanksgiving

Not only was it Thanksgiving today, it was our first snow. The funny thing about this is that 3 days ago our kids were outside playing in shorts. But this is St. Louis and you never know what you are going to get.
I have so much to be thankful for this year. My mom is here and that in itself is a true miracle. I have a wonderful happy and healthy family. Anna is doing better than we could ever ask for and a year ago I was staring at a picture of a little girl who was completely unknown to us but going to be our daughter. Lately I've felt like life with Anna is so difficult and I often go to bed feeling so bad about myself and my parenting with her. She is such a strong willed and demanding child and I so easily get frustrated with her. Her English and integration in our family is so good that it's easy to forget she has been here such a short time. When people ask about her transition I say things are fine but she still has some attachment issues. Today I was rocking her in my arms and she looked up and said "I love you." I sobbed. This is the first time she has said that to me on her own and all it took was some love and rocking. Such a reminder to me that all this little girl needs is some one on one attention. And that is hard to get in our house. She has a "twin" brother and other siblings that need a lot of attention too. But this was the incentive and reminder to me that she is still new to us and needs more than I am giving. I really love this little child need to give her more positive attention to facilitate attachment to us.
On a completely different note, it snowed today. I almost woke Anna up from her nap to see the heavy snow falling. She is from south China and it is tropical there. I am assuming she has never seen snow. When she woke up, I showed her the snow outside and asked her if she had ever seen snow. She said no. This will be a fun winter sledding if we get enough to play. So today I am thankful most for my family, all of them. I have so much deep hearted love for my kids, my hubby and my family. Truly I am grateful.

Callie looking out at the first snow.