Improvements

I have not checked my wife's blog in months. T has improved. She has improved dramatically. Months ago when we were in the middle of a wrestling match, I felt there was little hope for this child and she would have been better off left where she was. WRONG. We have learned that force, spanking or yelling is not an option. All I had to do in the past was give my kids the "look" and they would behave. I have treated my 14, soon to be 15, year old daughter as a four year old since then. When she gets no response from us, she will stop her bad behavior. Now that we can understand each other, I have been able to talk her out of having a full blown spell.
When I say spell, I mean this dialogue. "I hate you- I want to go back to the orphanage." And my all time favorite. "Fine, You want spankey T, Fine, Want spankey.
Her English is still very broken and she is forgetting Russian.

She responds to the promise of us always loving her and always being her Mama and Papa. It's now Mom and Dad. Even in those troubled months, she still called me Dad. I knew little Miss T would be a problem long before we adopted her. She surprised me with just how much a problem she could be, and she surprises me on how much progress she has made.