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He was depending on me as mommy to do for him, for everything. The first thing I noticed after Mandy moved in was, she tried to become the mommy that Dianna had been before he came to live with us. Mark was having a hard time with this; he had come to understand I was mommy. I sat Mandy down and explained to her that her or Dianna didn't need to be Marks mommy any longer. I would meet all his needs. I was hoping to be allowed to meat all her needs also if she would let me. This would be the first hard task that Mandy would need to try and understand. We would be coming across many things that would be a challenge for her.
The one thing we noticed about Mandy was, she loved Mike. She didn't just like to be by him, she had to be in his lap and always touching him.
She loved to all of us; it was like she was tying to make up for lost time. But with Mike she was very clingy with him. Mandy was coming up with some real bazaar stories. Not knowing what was real and what was fantasy we had to record all of the tales she told. We learned to listen to them all, hanging on to the ones she told over and over. She would talk about a fire and how their beds were gone now. She talked allot about the different uncles they had. She told about the things they would do. She was pretty intent that she didn't like someone named Tony; we later learned he was Mark's father. She also didn't like "cops" or "big black men", they were bad. "Cops take my mommy away, and black men hurt Dianna."
The first time Mandy got sick I was amazed. She had said nothing all day about having any pain, she had a fever but that was all I could see at the time. About two in the morning she laid crying in her bed, quietly. I had gone in to check on her and heard her, when I touched her ears she screamed. She never made any other complaint. I decided to take her straight to the hospital. They concluded that both of her eardrums were almost ready to burst. How could it get this bad I asked, she never said a word? I had told the doctor she was a foster child and gave some of her background. The only thing he could figure was, she was so use to being in pain and not seen many doctors. After a while she grew a very high tolerance to pain. After that experience we watched for any signs of illness closely. Mandy seemed to be settling into our family rapidly. She was becoming more comfortable with us. The honeymoon stage was coming to an end. This process would be explained to us later.