Hey, I found something else

The web just keeps on giving.  Here's another video I found, shot last year, of the Kotlas orphanage:


It's a news article, I think about a bomb threat last year. (The title is "April 1 Nightmare at the Orphanage;" here's a print news article about the bomb threat.) 

The video is dated April 5, 2011. That would have been about a month before we first visited - unfortunately Elena's not starring in the video, but there is some footage of one of the rooms where younger babies live.  That's something we didn't get to see, but something Elena would have experienced.  One small bit of knowledge.

And if anyone out there is adopting a child from Kotlas who's two-1/2 or three right now, you should check out the (admittedly low-res) video to see if your child shows up.

Rock n Roll

We went to the DIY Festival soon after Elena's eye surgery.  She still had fun.

At the DIY Festival

 

"Family Day"

It was one year ago today that Elena appeared in our hotel room.

I've been asked two or three times whether we plan on celebrating Elena's birthday, OR the "family day" when she came to live with us.  Then answer, of course, is both!  We want to acknowledge both the importance of  her becoming part of our family (family day), and Elena's own personal importance, independent of the our family (her birthday).  Minimizing either of these does a disservice to either Elena herself (by failing to acknowledge her life before she came to live with us) or our attachment to her (by failing to acknowledge the huge change in her life). 

And celebrating twice a year isn't such a bad thing, either.  Wish Elena a happy family day.

OW! Ow ow ow ow ow.

I noted a while back that Elena was going to have surgery to correct her strabismus; the surgery was originally scheduled for July 26, but was postponed until September 13 (that's yesterday).

The surgery was at the Children's Hospital of Michigan.  The hospital gave us a nice brochure, with pictures, about getting kids prepared for surgery - telling them what to expect, what things will look like, and what they're expected to do.  Elena took the preparations for surgery in stride; she seemed a little nervous, but was OK with doing whatever was expected of her.  (I think the willingness to go along with these medical things is another aspect of learned orphanage behavior I talked about before.)

Surgery was scheduled for 2pm, but was actually underway more quickly than that.  We were prepared to spend a long time in the waiting room, but wound up spending only about five minutes, after which it was a quick but orderly march through the pre-surgical procedures.  Here's Elena in her scrubs:

A process-oriented approach to food

We went food shopping yesterday at Detroit's Eastern Market. When we got home, we got busy putting the food away, and in the hubbub, Elena ate a few bites of food without asking.  I caught her eventually, when she slid her hand in and pulled out another piece of... broccoli.

Yes, broccoli.  Her surreptitious between-meal snack was little pieces of broccoli.  I didn't say anything, of course, because (a) it's not a big deal, and (b) it's broccoli!  Oh, no, my baby ruined her appetite by eating too much broccoli!  Whatever shall I do?

Seriously, though, this illustrates an interesting approach Elena has to food, and to things in general: she's more interested in the process than in the final result.  In this case, I don't think she was actually hungry, but the whole process of reaching in the bag and breaking off little florets (from broccoli she picked out at the market, I might add) was just irresistable.

(More after the break.)

Empathy

Elena and I sometimes troll around YouTube for kid's videos, just to see what she likes.  Just yesterday we stumbled on the Swiss claymation series Pingu the Penguin (Elena's got a stuffed penguin she really likes).  We watched a couple episodes (they're short), including this one, where Pingu's a babysitter:

The video features Pingu taking care of a pair of baby penguins, who spend most of their time crying to get food or attention.  The crying parts are done in a surprisingly realistic representation of babies in total sobbing meltdown, (especially for something done in claymation).

When Elena first saw it, tears just streamed down her face, poor little thing.

I'm not quite sure why;  the video's not scary at all, nor is it particularly "sad" to my adult sensibilities.  My best guess is that seeing a couple babies crying so much, then getting only their basic needs taken care of (but not picked up, notice) hit just a little too close to home.

After a few big hugs, some explanations about how babies need LOTS of care, love and attention, and then some extra "pretend baby care" for her too, Elena asked to see it again and was OK with it.