It’s been fascinating and touching to see changes in the children in the short time they’ve been here.

When we met them and played with them, they talked about monsters. When we talked about them coming to live with us, they asked us if we have monsters in our house. I reassured them that we have very strong big brothers (I put pictures of them in the album we gave them) and a dog, and the monsters are very scared of them so they don’t come to our house.

Anyway, I continued, our house is only for nice people and monsters don’t want to be with us because they’re not nice. Before we walked in the door of our house, they asked about this again, and I told them the same thing. The question about monsters came up a few times, and each time I reassured them that we have no monsters because the monsters are scared to come to our house.

The first full day they were here, the twins discovered the dress up box. They loved it! They are having a lot of new experiences here, and being able to freely choose their games is part of that new experience (and choose their food, and their clothes, and their books, and so on!).

Ds5 combined one of the costumes together with a mask and a helmet that he brought with him in an interesting way – as the Princess Monster.

Could this child have created a costume in which he would be more emotionally defended than this? His face can’t be seen at all, nothing can be revealed. He’s completely covered from head to toe. After this he curled up on his side and lay on the swing (in his costume) while I pushed him for a long time. Obviously this felt secure to him.

(When my husband saw this mask, he was surprised since it’s not the kind of thing I keep around. I don’t, but it was a gift from his foster mother. Though I dislike scary superhero masks like this one, it’s his and I’m not going to make it disappear.)

Noticing that we had a shortage of female costumes and now have a little girl who would appreciate more female selections, over the next day I sewed a cape and matching skirt from pink satin material with star cutouts that I had in my fabric box. I also put a couple of little girl dresses in that I wouldn’t find suitable for everyday but are cute for dress-up (these are now the favorites of dd5 and dgd4 – granddaughter). (*If you’re in Israel and have costumes you’re not using that you would like to send my way, please do – they’ll get tons of use!)

They continued dressing up, though not every day and not for as long in the first couple of days.

Since that first morning, ds5 has never put together a costume that covers his face. I didn’t think anything about his choice of costumes at the time other than it was creative. Now that I look back, I see it was much more than that – it was a way for him to protect himself at a time of uncertainty and vulnerability.

I was thinking about the difference in the way they use the dress up costumes now, and then realized that not only are they not dressing up as monsters or policemen (they had a traumatic removal by policemen from their home), neither of them has asked about monsters since the second day. I hope they’ve put their fear of monsters to rest for now.

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Even in the first picture I saw of ds5, I noticed a kind of look he had about him. It was almost like his brow was furrowed with tension, regardless of what activity he was in the middle of; this look didn’t leave him even when sleeping.

My days with him from about noon and on have been intense, as he gets increasingly tired and regresses into more and more behaviors that need a lot of calm and understanding to navigate. Yesterday at 4 pm I looked at him – usually a time he’s emotionally wound tight – and I thought, what happened to his face? He looks so sweet!

Then I realized, the fear is leaving his face and his expression is starting to relax. There’s still tension in his brow, but the intensity on his face has shifted. This really took me aback. I would sometimes look at him and hope that one day he’ll be able to let go of whatever fear is inside him that’s creating that expression, but never dreamed we would see a physical change like this so quickly.

Avivah