Safe Enough to Get Sick

We reached another milestone this past weekend -- on Saturday Wendy woke up quite sick (with a bad headache and cold). For most parents this would not be something to feel positively about in any way, and of course I did feel sad for her that she wasn't feeling well physically, but looked at through another lens, it spoke of huge progress emotionally. In the more than 3 years that we have known the girls, they have never been sick. Other parents have kind of stared at me blankly when I have told them that Fer and Wendy have never missed a day of school due to illness, we have never been to the doctor for a sick visit, nothing. In recent months we have seen such change from our younger one as far as trust and bonding and connection to us, and it really seemed to me that on some level she finally felt safe enough to get sick and therefore vulnerable and to allow us to take care of her. She rested at home all day Saturday, missing all her activities that she usually greatly enjoys, and we spent the day shuttling tea and soup, setting up the steam machine, and generally coddling and caring for her.
Interestingly, I posted about this with my Facebook group of other moms who have adopted older children, and it came back pretty much unanimous that their children as well had taken quite some time after being adopted before getting sick, and it is apparently a very common dynamic -- the kids in some unconscious way shut down their physical responses to pain and discomfort until they feel secure to some level with their new family. So, though we certainly were sorry that Wendy wasn't well, we were so glad to be given the gift of being able to nurture her through her first real illness in the time we have known her.