Bố and Mẹ

Last night Gianna Mai went to bed early. At one point during the night she was calling out "bố!" and at another point calling "mẹ!". I am still skeptical that when she's calling mẹ, she actually talking about me and not one of her caretakers. This morning we took her and Jada for a walk around Hoan Kiem Lake. I posted more pics in the Kodak gallery here. She fell asleep in Dan's arms and is now having trouble going down for a nap. I came into the room and she was laying on the bed playing with her feet and her plush dog toy. She started crying when she saw me. I picked her up to console her. For the first time, she actually latched onto me with both arms and legs. She was crying, wailing "mẹ! mẹ!" She never called for bố, even though he was in the next room. I think this is a step in the right direction. With both Jada and Gianna, they seem to be bonding more with the bố than with the mẹ. We think this might be a trust issue with women. All of the caretakers are women and the kids have never really had male role models, so they don't know what to expect. The female caretakers cycled in and out of their lives, just as the caretaker Mai was most attached to left the day before her adoption. So they learned that women leave, don't get too attached to them if you don't want to get hurt. It will probably take a while to change this attitude with many heartaches for both Mai and Mẹ.