Transitions

The handoff was pretty traumatic for Sofie. She was at her foster family's house until this morning, and we picked her up at 9:45. She was waiting in the lobby of a sky rise office building. I saw her in the window from the car, and my heart skipped a beat. As soon as she saw us, she started to cry. With their equivalent of the child protective services, we went up to a room in the building where they did the paperwork. She was subdued for a moment, and I gave her the play cell phone we brought her. She handled it for a second and when we relaxed, she made a run for an open door to freedom. We caught her and she started screaming.

We signed paperwork and brought her down to the lobby again. She continued to kick and scream while we took a family photo for CCCWA. She bawled in the car on the way back to the hotel. She roared through the lobby, up the elevator, and into our room. She was nuclear for about 2 hours. Eventually I had the bright idea of giving her a bottle of milk. We found silence and it was golden, but temporary. After the bottle, she started weeping again, eventually, she fell asleep and we got her down for a 35 min nap. Unfortunately we had to wake her to go to the bank with the guide.

She cried all the way to the bank, calling for her grandma. At the bank, we got her to calm down for awhile. When we got back to the room again, she cried some more. Eventually, I gave her another bottle of milk. She lay down awhile, didn't sleep and suddenly recovered. It was like her brain reset. We fed her some oranges and gooseberry like things and she had a few good hours. We played. She laughed. It was beautiful.

Eventually, we gave her the last bottle of milk and she crashed to sleep.

Overall, things are a-changing.
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