Welcome back!

You may remember this post on February 17th. I wrote it the day M. went back to jail to live with her mom. Since then, I haven't seen her. Our psychologist was planning on going back to visit her at the end of February to see how things were going. If things were going well (as expected), I was planning on waiting another 2-3 weeks before going back to visit her. It's no secret that M. was very attached to me, so I didn't want my visit to interfere with any bonding between her and her mom.

Well, my visit to her never happened... Instead, she came to visit me! Apparently there's a strike going on in the women's jail. They're saying it should last a week. Because of the strike (from what I understand, some money hasn't been paid), there's not going to be enough food for everyone, so jail officials told all of the mothers that their children needed to leave. As M.'s mother doesn't have any help from her family, she called us to ask if we could keep M. for the week. 

Our psychologist called me late Tuesday night to ask if I'd be willing to keep M. for the week. The idea is that she can be with the kids some during the day, but she'll stay with me during naptime and during the night. We don't want her to get too into the routine and being with the kids all of the time again for several reasons. The main reason is that it might be traumatic to her if she thinks she's suddenly back here to live again after such a short time with her mom (after all, they've been back together less than a month). If she's with me most of the time, it's not necessarily like she's back here permanently. She had a really hard transition when she arrived last time, so we're trying to avoid that by having her stay with me. 

Of course I was super excited for M. to return, even if it's just for a short time! After visiting hours at the jail ended and M. still wasn't here, I was beginning to think maybe she'd be coming another day or it wouldn't happen at all. A little after 6pm, she arrived! Poor thing seemed to be in a bit of shock. It was obvious that she did remember the house, but she wasn't sure why she remembered it! She stayed in the kitchen with me for awhile and kept looking around and pointing at different things. Her vocabulary wasn't big when she left (she understands a lot, but her speech is definitely delayed… she was only saying 3-4 words), but one of the few words she said was my name. I was happy to hear that she hadn't forgotten it! The tías always ask her, "M., what's your mama's name?" and she loudly proclaims "Hannah!" After she ate some dinner, we went upstairs for a little playtime with the other kids. Saret and Kliber definitely remembered her and were excited to see her again! She fussed a little bit at bedtime, but didn't really cry. 

I'll have to write an update on how the week is going in a few days!