Back home!!

5:30am, helping strip the beds before we leave the house

playing one of her new toys

Here she is as soon as we took off! she slept the whole flight!

 The kids were so excited we were home! Victoria tackled Gerri, hugging and kissing her!

Nana came over to do eggs :)

It was very hard to wait while the dye worked :)

The finished results!

Soaking her hands to get all the dye off

Gerri didn't understand the whole dye the egg thing. Nana was running the show, Danny & Victoria were going gangbusters, and Gerri had a tough time. She was not sure what to do, but could NOT ask for help. She was SO afraid that she would not get more eggs to do that she totally zoned everyone else out and used her hands. She did not understand the little holders, could not figure it out so she just went all in. I walked in to check on everyone and she wouldn't even look at me. When I asked her how it was going she just looked at me with a blank look in her eyes and said "fine", which is the word she uses when she is trying to control things when she is out of control. That is when I noticed her HANDS were totally dyed. I asked her what happened and she just shrugged and tried to hide them.
It took me a bit to even realize that it was too much and she was out of it. I asked her what was wrong with her egg dipper and my mom said, she couldn't do it. I looked her in the eye and said Gerri what was wrong with it? Her hands started to shake and she wouldn't look at me for quite a while. I cleaned up the other kids and took out the dye cups and then sat at the table with her.
It took her a while before she would even look at me. She finally looked up and said "sorry". I calmly asked her what happened and she just shrugged. She kept looking at her fingers as if she couldn't understand how they got that way. My mom got her a bucket to wash her hands with and I just sat there next to her waiting for her to open up.
Finally the girls and I went into the bedroom to play spongebob on the ps2. Gerri just sat there looking totally forlorn, with her woe is me face. I had her sit across from me and asked her to tell me what happened. It took her quite a while to be able to admit that she did it because she was afraid Danny or Victoria was going to take her eggs. I asked her why she didn't ask for help from either Nana or me and she just shrugged. Finally I asked if she thought we would not help her and she said no, I then asked if she thought we would take them away and she said no. I asked her if Danny or Victoria took any from her and she said no. Then I asked if Danny or Victoria's hands were covered in dye and she said no. I asked her if she was watching what they were doing so she could do it and she said no. She finally whispered I am sorry. I asked her if she enjoyed it and she just shrugged.
Sometimes it is like pulling teeth to try to get her to tell us what she is thinking!! It can be SO frustrating. I am not so sure SHE even understands what she is feeling.
I really think she was embarassed once she was done with the eggs and realized what she had done.
Once again I asked her why she didn't ask Nana for help and she just couldn't answer. I asked her if she didn't want Nana to know she didn't know how to do it? and she started crying :(
I told her that mama's and nana's were here to help, but that she HAD to ask for help!!
I asked her how Nana would know she needed help if she didn't ask and she looked at me and said, She wouldn't know?  She finally calmed down but it took quite a while and she said sorry mama. I looked at her and said Did you have fun? and she just blinked and looked at me.
She said she wanted to say sorry to Nana so I told her to head on out and do it!
A couple of minutes later she came back in with red eyes saying she was sad.
I asked her what could you do different? and she said, ask for help?? I said YES! ask for help!! I tried to explain that everyone needs help, but if you don't ask no one will know.
My mom came in a bit later to ask if I told her to say sorry to her, she was totally confused about it, she kept saying but it is ok.  I tried to explain a bit, but little ears were listening. So I just said, she needed to do it!
Of course it helped that I was totally exhausted and the kids were clingy.
All 3 kids were sound asleep by 7:30!
So it is not all wine and roses, it is still hard at times even after 1 year home.
It is still so frustrating to me that when she does something wrong, even something small, she gets totally closed off, angry and mad at me! When this happens she cannot tell me what is happening, she cannot even put a sentence together. For anyone that has met her, you know that normally she has NO problem talking.
I did get the stink eye tonight before bed and I smiled and told her "your bed better be dry in the morning!!"
(yes, cause even at 7 that is another one of her control things that she does when she is mad at us when she does something wrong)