Teresa was an artist at the Bucktown Arts Festival in Chicago this weekend. The Festival runs two full days, Saturday and Sunday, so all three of us made a long weekend trip out of it. We've been on short vacations with Elena before, but this wasn't really a vacation-it was something of a hectic trip, with odd hours and activities.
Elena did have fun, particularly so since the Festival was held right next door to Holstein Park, which has both a playground and a pool. Saturday was sunny and hot, and both the Festival and the playground were pretty crowded. The playground, of course, had a lot of kids about Elena's age.
I think the combination of the excitement, the lack of sleep, the different location, and the gaggle of kids pushed Elena harder than we thought it would. She played with other kids in the playground, but then started interacting with the other kids' parents. Her first "look, man, look!" directed at another adult was kind of amusing, but then she did it more, and it was less amusing. I finally pulled the plug when she asked to be picked up by a strange woman.
In retrospect, it seems clear that the playground atmosphere seemed very much like playing at the orphange, and the strange surroundings made Elena less sure of her place: the last stressful, crowded travel experience she'd had was one where she wound up living with two strange people half a world away. Consciously or subconsciously, being "taken back" to an orphanage-like playground probably pushed a few to many buttons.
Sunday afternoon was rainy, and the playground was nearly empty, and we had a perfectly fine (although somewhat wet) time on the swings. So no real harm done, I think. In any case, it's not unusual for adopted children to regress to this kind of coping behavior when they're feeling uncertain or overwhelmed. However, this is a good reminder that it's not always obvious beforehand when Elena is feeling that level of uncertainty, and that might take some thought. On the one hand, I don't want to underestimate her adaptability and shield her from things she doesn't need to be shielded from, but on the other... she's still three years old.
And she's our daughter.
Elena did have fun, particularly so since the Festival was held right next door to Holstein Park, which has both a playground and a pool. Saturday was sunny and hot, and both the Festival and the playground were pretty crowded. The playground, of course, had a lot of kids about Elena's age.
I think the combination of the excitement, the lack of sleep, the different location, and the gaggle of kids pushed Elena harder than we thought it would. She played with other kids in the playground, but then started interacting with the other kids' parents. Her first "look, man, look!" directed at another adult was kind of amusing, but then she did it more, and it was less amusing. I finally pulled the plug when she asked to be picked up by a strange woman.
In retrospect, it seems clear that the playground atmosphere seemed very much like playing at the orphange, and the strange surroundings made Elena less sure of her place: the last stressful, crowded travel experience she'd had was one where she wound up living with two strange people half a world away. Consciously or subconsciously, being "taken back" to an orphanage-like playground probably pushed a few to many buttons.
Sunday afternoon was rainy, and the playground was nearly empty, and we had a perfectly fine (although somewhat wet) time on the swings. So no real harm done, I think. In any case, it's not unusual for adopted children to regress to this kind of coping behavior when they're feeling uncertain or overwhelmed. However, this is a good reminder that it's not always obvious beforehand when Elena is feeling that level of uncertainty, and that might take some thought. On the one hand, I don't want to underestimate her adaptability and shield her from things she doesn't need to be shielded from, but on the other... she's still three years old.
And she's our daughter.
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