Sadness 2

Elena is usually pretty easy-going. Because of this, she's had (I think) less trouble adjusting to family life than a typical orphanage child. Sometimes, though, things hit her just right. She's been upset before when watching a cartoon that had a subtext of abandonment (see this post). And just this weekend she had a similar reaction to a puppet show.

This last Saturday, we went out to Noel Night in Detroit. There were a ton of free things to do, and the first thing we went to was Kolobok, put on by the PuppetArt Theatre at the DIA. Kolobok is essentially the Russian version of the Gingerbread Man, where a couple bakes a little loaf of bread (Kolobok), who then runs away from his parents, plays in the woods, and eventually needs to outwit the hungry fox.

In this version of the story, two forest spirits interact with Kolobok and join him on his journey. The "forest spirits" are live actors, and control many of the puppets, and so act as both viewpoint characters and as the technical method to move the puppets around the stage. We see the forest spirits playing with leaves at the beginning of the play (there's a short video here), and later they play with Kolobok when he jumps off the windowsill where he was cooling after coming from the oven.

That's a nice way of handling the puppetry, except... Except Kolobok really is a puppet, and when in the story he "jumps" off the windowsill, in reality he's being taken off the windowsill by the live actor forest spirits. Being taken away from his mother and father, in other words.

Elena saw that and it hit her hard enough that she immediately began crying. It didn't matter that the story Kolobok wanted to jump off the windowsill, or that the story would eventually have a happy ending, or that Elena had actually seen the same puppet show before (a year ago, and not having made the same inference, obviously); it just mattered that the poor little loaf of bread was being taken from his Mom and Dad.

We wound up leaving the puppet show and regrouping in the corridor. Elena's just old enough that she can understand why she's sad and articulate that to us, so we all talked about what was happening and why she was sad. It was a good conversation, but Elena was still shaken enough that we went off to do something else: in this case a half-hour rendition of the Nutcracker, and then off to decorate a gingerbread man. So this incident didn't stop Elena from enjoying the evening. But still, it's a reminder that there are some things that will affect Elena differently than other kids, and sometimes those things can be quite unexpected.

The line game

We're recently started playing the "line game" - a two-person game handed down from Teresa's parents. The rules are: One person draws a simple squiggle, and the other person uses the squiggle as the basis of a drawing.

Drawing has been something we've been working on, in a low-emphasis way, for a while.  Way back when we visited her in the orphanage, we brought some markers.  Elena had a unique approach to drawing, where she would pull a marker out of the box, pop the cap off, and very carefully make the tiniest dot on the piece of paper. Then she'd recap the marker, put it back in the box, and repeat with another color.

April 2011 - Elena draws, a dot at a time.

That's a very process-oriented approach, and one I suspect stemmed from limited practice time with markers and crayons.  The orphanage doesn't have a lot of money, so I think there's little room for consumables like paper and crayons.

It took some time after Elena got home before she actually began scribbling and drawing, and so it's pretty satisfying to see her actually draw something. It's been just recently - in the past month or so - that she's been able to consistently draw something recognizable.  Which brings us around to the line game.

We started the line game with Elena squiggling and me drawing, but just today she decided that she wanted to draw.  So I made a red "V" shape, slid the paper to Elena... and she made this:

A line game birdie.

A very recognizable little bird.  From her own imagination, in her own hand.
 

Vacation again

We went on a week-long vacation earlier in the month.  Elena loves going on vacation - "who doesn't?" you might ask, but the sudden change of venue and schedule can be somewhat scary for kids with an orphange background, as I talked about last year at this time.  Elena's never really had that problem, and in fact loves just about every aspect of taking a trip, from hotels to restaurants, even (to some extent) the car ride.

Part of her enthusiasm is getting both of us to herself for an extended period, I think, but another large part is just in doing different things.  We went again this year on a trip to Michigan's Upper Peninsula, staying in Marquette and Houghton.  Last year, we made a similar trip, but only made small, short trips out-of-doors, knowing that a three-year-old's stamina wouldn't match ours.

Elena's four-and-a-half now, and old enough that her stamina is noticeably better.  And, we found, she's much more adept at walking than she was a year ago, and can keep up with us for the most part with no trouble, even along paths filled with roots and stones.

And so we got to take some pretty lengthy hikes, along the beach or just exploring some of the terrain.  Like waterfalls, for example:


Water-walking at the Hungarian Falls

Or just walking on the rocks in the river:

Walking through the water with Mom.

What was really, gratifying, though, was that after we were done with some of our walks. Elena would say, "Mom!  I had a lot of fun today!  Walking here-or-there was really really fun!"  This even after she'd originally expressed some skepticism about whatever it was we were doing.

It's gratifying that Elena enjoys doing some of the same things that we do.  Maybe that's not all that surprising, since we're talking about walking in the water, or hopping across rocks, or just exploring - thinkgs I think kids would universally love.  But still, watching her discover some of these places and things for the first time is a little special.

Even more fun is that we spent some time walking around the Quincy Mine near Houghton - not underground (this time), but just through some of the ruins on the surface. I've always thought the old mining equipment and old buildings were cool - there's a sense of history, and the large industrial equipment appeals to my engineering sensibilities.

That's not really a reason I'd think would resonate with a four-year-old, though, so I wasn't certain Elena would actually enjoy looking at the mining equipment and buildings at the Quincy Mine.  But, surprisingly, she did.  Or, rather, she enjoyed climbing on the old mining equipment.

Dancing on the "stage."

Which, really, isn't all that much different from my attraction to this old mine stuff - it's just a different way to interact.


Climb aboard!

The internet giveth, yet again

As I've said before, I try to keep tabs on what's happening at the Kotlas baby house.  Thus, I just stumbled across a group that purportedly donates items to the baby house (I say "purportedly" because there seems to be some question about whether monetary donations actually end up where they're intended to go - but, for the moment, that's neither here nor there).  This group has been around for a couple-three years, and has visited the baby house a few times.

And...they took pictures.  Including a visit in May 2011 (this would be a few weeks after we first came to Kotlas) where they delivered some toys.  A few kids were wating for the toys:


Kotlas baby house, May 2011

And those few kids include a little girl in a yellow dress and red bow (in the center).  Yup, that's Elena; another picture of her that we've never seen before.


They also visited in June 2011, when the Baby House celebrates the "Day of the Child" with some costume skits:


Kotlas baby house, June 2011

The kids in the picture are the right age to be Elena, but it's hard to tell.  I asked Elena if she remembers this, and she matter-of-factly identified herself as the third baby chick in the picture above.  It's hard to tell if she's remembering truely, or is just influenced by the yellow dress in the first picture, but it's quite likely she's one of the kids in the picture or just off-camera.

I was just remarking to an acquaintance how rare and special pre-adoption pictures of orphanage kids are, and here are a few more to add to our collection.

It's that time of year again

We are once again preparing to file a post-adoption report with the Russian government.  All in all, we need to file four post adoption reports: at six months and one year after adoptio (ones we've already completed), at two years (due this year) and a final one in 2014 at three years after adoption.  We're filing these primarily because we promised we would: Elena is still a Russian citizens, and the state has an understandable interest in her welfare.

Last year, though, there was the added incentive that not filing the required post-adoption report could affect those families that were currently in the middle of their adoption process in a negative way.  This year, however, the Russian governement halted US adoption of Russian orphans, so there are no  American families currently in the middle of their adoption process.

We're still filing, of course, and preparing the report gives us an opportunity to look over the last year's worth of pictures; always fun for any reason.  But it's a bit sad that our timely filing won't actually make a damn bit of difference to anyone.

The power of stories

Elena's always been fascinated by books and stories, ever since she first came home - likely because, I think, no one ever sat down and read a book to Elena in the orphanage, and so the experience was new and fascinating.  I've told this story before, but bear with me:

For a few weeks or so, when Elena first came home sitting down to "read books" meant having her randomly page through the book, pointing out objects, and naming them.  She didn't yet understand that a book is read from front to back and contained a story.

That is, until one night when I forced us to read through "The Cat in the Hat," (or the "кошка в шапка" -- koshka f shapka--as we read it) reading every word in order. She was kind of fussy, but less so when I did it the next night.  More importantly, the act of reading the whole book showed Elena it contained more than just words and pictures - it contained a story. I could almost see the lightbulb go on in her head when she figured that out.

Toys and Pictures

From time to time, I check up on what's going on in Kotlas.  It's interesting, because we have a definite, although tenuous, connection to the city; more importantly, Elena spent a lot of her time there and may be interested later in knowing about it.

It's also interesting because I'll run across some news about or pictures of the Baby House.  That's how I found the video history of the baby house I posted a few weeks back, and that's how I found this:



 It's a local TV story about a photography studio who ran a project where they set aside an afternoon every week or so to take portraits, using the proceeds to buy toys for the orphangage. Here's their VK page (for those of you who haven't heard of it, VK is like the Russian Facebook), which includes more still photos from the event.

What was said and what was meant

One thing you prepare for, when preparing for adoption, is dealing with comments from other people about adoptive children. 

Unlike many adopted kids, Elena actually looks similar to Teresa and me. I think that's not co-incidental; the Russian Ministry of Education intentionally matches children to parents in part by looks.  Whether or not that's true, it means we don't have to deal with the same kind of questions or comments from strangers (well-intentioned or otherwise) that, for example, White parents of an African-American child deal with.

However, we were recently chatting with an acquaintance, while watching Elena play, about how similar she looks to us.  In the course of the conversation, the other person said, "oh, you can't even tell she's not your daughter."

More dancing

Late last year we enrolled Elena in a dance class - "pre-dance," actually - as we mentioned in this post.  Attending a class like this was partly to get Elena used to doing things without Mom & Dad, partly to give her practice following instructions, and partly to give her something fun to do.  The class seems to have been successful on all counts.

 

The class had their year-end recital recently.  The theme for the recital, for the pre-dance kids, was an undersea ball.  They dressed in dance costumes that looked something like 1920s style bathing suits and danced with flowing, swimmy motions.  We're talking four-year-olds here, so the performance wasn't as crisp as you'd see at the Bolshoi, but everyone got about 90% of the movements right, which is an A in my book.

 

More importantly, everyone had a lot of fun, Elena included.  We stayed to see the performances by the older kids - tumbling, ballet, flamenco, breakdancing, musical instruments - a lot of which Elena liked, and thought would be fun to do when she's older.

 

Elena in her "swim" costume.

Chugg-chugga-choo-chooing onto the floor.

Everyone having fun.

'Blacka! 'Blacka!

The Russian word for "apple" is "яблоко," which is (roughly) pronounced YAblacka.  The word is kind of dear to us because it's one of the first things that Elena spontaneously asked for that we understood.

Our September 2011 flight back from Moscow to Washington DC was a grueling 11 hours.  That's enough to make adults fidgety, let alone a then-two-year-old.  However, we tried to keep her occupied. and she actually did very well, especially by two-year-old, cooped-up-on-an-airplane, lacking-sufficient-sleep standards.

One thing we were concerned about, though, was what she would eat.  We weren't really aware of what she liked or didn't, and we were kind of at the mercy of whatever the airline chose to serve.  We had a few snacks to fall back on - raisins, for example - but that was a little sparse.

I forget exactly what the meals were, but one of them came with an apple, and when Elena saw it, she immediately reached for it, with an excited, "'blacka! 'blacka!"  Teresa knew exactly what she meant (thanks to a little study of basic Russian food words) and Elena got her apple.

I was reminded of this story because the preschool that Elena goes to held a small bake sale to raise money to help another kid's learning center.  They were selling small bags of cookies, brownies, slices of cake, etc. for $1.00.  Since they were small, an only $1.00, we had Elena choose her favorite.  She chose... an apple.  Over a chocolate brownie, or a frosted slice of cake.

I know darn well she loves chocolate and frosting, and it's a bit of a surprise that she loves apples more, at least at that time and place.  Maybe apples are something special from her past, something that has a unique, important meaning.  Or maybe, with my sophisticated adult sensibilites, I'm underestimating the attraction of a crisp apple.  Or maybe she just felt like an apple - she happily bit into it, and actually finished the whole thing over the next 20 minutes or so.  But in any case: hooray for the 'blacka!

We first met Elena on Thursday, April 28, 2011, after flying through St Petersburg, Arkhangelsk, and into Kotlas. That's exactly two years ago today. Here's what we did two years ago, with some pictures.   Two years is a fair chunk of Elena's life, as you might be able to tell from these two pictures, one taken two years ago and one taken yesterday:


Elena, April 28 2011, at the Kotlas baby house.

Elena, April 27 2013, gardening in Detroit.
She's sporting her "I love shopping" T-shirt

And, just for fun, we sort of re-created a scene from Kotlas:

Wow, that's... really interesting.

As I've pointed out before, the Kotlas orphanage turned 25 earlier this year.  The anniversary hasn't passed unnoticed - I stumbled across an interesting, professionally edited video of Kotlas orphanage as it turns 25.


Фильм к 25-летию Котласского дома ребенка (2013 г.) from Plusnin Alexandr on Vimeo.

Even though I don't understand the Russian, the video is actually really interesting for its look at a lot of different places in the orphanage and shots of what kids of all ages do during the day.  We get to see some of the things that Elena probably experienced, that we never had a chance to see.

Oooooo... kasha

Kasha, in Russian cuisine, is any kind of porridge, and includes porridges made from oats - what we would call "oatmeal" - and wheat - our "Cream of Wheat."  But Russians hold a special place in their heart for buckwheat kasha:

Buckwheat kasha

Buckwheat kasha comes in different varieties, depending on how its roasted.  It's nuttier and more flavorful than oatmeal, and can be mixed with honey or fruit to make a sweet breakfast dish, or with stock and spices to make a savory side dish (not unlike a rice pilaf, for example).

I was thinking about this yesterday because we made buckwheat kasha for breakfast.  The Russian food store near us has a good selection, and it's also available in Polish markets, of which there are a number close by.  Teresa often makes kasha for Elena - Elena adores it, and it's a link to her Russian heritage.

It's also a link for us, remembering our trip to Russia.  The Sovietskaya hotel we stayed at in Kotlas had a small cafeteria, and during breakfast they'd cook up a pot of kasha.  In addition, some of the other hotel guests would cook kasha in their rooms, so every morning the entire hotel smelled of kasha.  It's a pretty distinctive smell, and smelling it in our kitchen instantly brings me back to the Sovietskaya cafeteria, eating a hard boiled egg and a bowl of kasha.

And that makes me wonder what memories kasha evokes for Elena.  Smell and taste are powerful memory triggers, and Elena would likely have eaten kasha most mornings (if not every morning) in the orphanage.  Does she remember her morning kasha?  She says she does, but her details are scattered and fleeting, as early memories are.

But she still loves kasha, just as Masha does in the Russian cartoon Маша + каша (Masha and kasha):
 

"I love you"

One thing that's important in child-parent relationships (and maybe the thing that's important) is unconditional love.  It's important because it's the security blanket the child has to fall back on; the context of the relationship.  If you know your parents love you, things make more sense, worries decrease, and it's much easier to weather the occasional and inevitable misunderstandings.

But how do you know your parents love you?  Most kids are born to their parents, and the bonding and love come early and naturally.  But for someone raised in an orphanage, and taken away by a pair of strangers, that knowledge takes time to develop.

Miss Elena Goes to School

It wasn't so long ago that Elena went to her first class with other kids, and out of sight of Teresa and I - her Monday afternoon dance class.  Part of the reason for sending her to dance class was (appropriately) because she likes to dance, but other parts were to give her a chance to socialize with other kids her age, and to see how well she does taking instruction from another adult.

We didn't really have any worries about the socialization part - Elena spent 2-1/2 years socializing with other children 24/7.  However, there aren't really any other kids her age in the neighborhood, so she hasn't had a chance to play a lot with other kids recently.  And playing with talkative and active four-year-olds (which Elena is now) is something different from playing with toddling and barely talking two-year-olds (which Elena was then).  So even though Elena has (I assume) a good base of socialization skills to draw on, they're probably starting to bet stale.

We do have some nebulous worries about the taking instruction from another adult part.  There are two pieces to that: one is bonding - it takes time to establish a firm parent-child bond, and to reassure a child like Elena that she won't be taken away to somewhere else yet again (remember this has actually happened to Elena - strange people took her away from the orphanage and never took her back - so a fear like this is perfectly logical).  Would leaving her in the care of another adult worry her? 

Snow baby

Kotlas is pretty snowy, as one might expect from its location in the north of Russia. Here, shamelessly stolen from another blog, is a picture of the playground at the Kotlas orphanage in the dead of winter.

Kotlas orphanage playground, January 2011, via Denise & JJ

Still, fresh air is good for kids, so the thinking goes, and the children will play outside even in the winter.  I don't think they let two-year-olds just wander around in head-high snow (instead, the kids use the playground shelters seen in the picture below), but they do get outside into the snow.

Kotlas orphange playground, April 2011.  The toys in the
first picture are just off-camera to the left.

Detroit, though, doesn't get near as much snow as Kotlas. In fact, here's a graph of average snow depth, courtesy of Weatherspark, for 2011:

Snow depth in Kotlas, Russia: historical average (grey band)
and 2011 actual (bright blue line)

The actual 2011 data shows about 20" of snow on the ground for all of January - March. For reference, Elena was just about 30" tall at that time.  Must be a pretty impressive sight, when you're that small, to see so much snow.

(Oh, and if you're wondering, below is a graph of daily high and low temperatures for 2011, also from Weatherspark. Note the brutal weeks in January and February where the highs were below zero Farenheit.)

The Lifebook

We just put together a "Lifebook" for Elena.  For those of you who haven't heard of this, the Lifebook is an interesting concept - it's a short book that documents the child's life from the child's perspective, focusing on recording memories and life events that occurred prior to adoption.  Lifebooks are important in that they document te child's life, and help children keep the connections t o people and places that have been important in their lives, and understand and come to terms with all the information about their past experiences in a healthy, constructive manner.

The Lifebook is different from the "Elena" book we put together in the past; the earlier book is really about Elena's adoption, when we met her at the orphanage, and what we did when we came home.  We tried to put that book together from Elena's perspective, but it's still really about us - us as a family, yes, but it doesn't really touch on Elena's earlier life.

The lifebook covers Elena's whole life, starting from when she was born, and includes everything we know about her early life. 

The cover of Elena's Lifebook

There are several tricks to writing a lifebook, not all of them obvious.  It needs to clearly discuss how and why the child was seperated from her mother or family, in an age-appropriate manner.  In some cases (although not in Elena's, thankfully), those reasons can be horrifying, and in all cases they can be at least a little sad.  Those negative things make it tempting to just glide over the issue and make do with half-truths... but that's not fair to the child, who deserves to know everything about her past.  Having a lifebook that covers these issues helps the communication between child and parents, and is something that the child can consult later and ask questions about at her own pace.

The lifebook also needs to clearly cover common misconceptions that adopted children have - for example, it's not unusual for adopted kids to think that they weren't ever born, they were just created. (That's not as silly a misconception as it may seem, if you consider how one might differentiate non-adopted kids, who "grew in their mommy's tummy," with adopted kids who did not.)  As another example, children often believe that what happened to them - particularly the seperation from their birth mother - was somehow their fault.  The lifebook needs to clearly explain exactly who made decisions that affected the child's life.

The lifebook is also supposed to be a lifebook: it will change and expand as Elena grows, partly with her input.  (It's looseleaf, so additions are easy.)  In fact, she already has some ideas on what other information she wants to include in the book.  And, I should add, the lifebook is private.  Elena might choose to share it (or some of it - again, a looseleaf makes selecting only certain pages easy) when she's older, but it's her choice...because it's her story.

The Kotlas Baby House Turns 25.

The Kotlas orphanage opened on January 26, 1988, 25 years ago.  (Interestingly, January 26th is also Elena's birthday).  Here's an article  on the anniversary (English translation) from the Kotlas daily newspaper.  It gives a little history on the building itself, and the staff, and particularly the director who spearheaded the construction of the building.

Speech therapist Irina Kopylova in class with Sonya.
These are the kind of exercises Elena would have done.

 

Happy Birthday

Saturday was Elena's fourth birthday.  She's old enough to be properly excited about it, the primary reasons being presents and cake.  Elena's cousin Helen, who's about the same age, also came for a visit.  It was pretty low-key, and everybody had fun.


Sticking sticky stickers - a birthday card from Grandma & Grandpa

Opening presents

Let her dance, let her dance, let her dance dance dance

We've noted before that the Kotlas baby house used a lot of songs to teach and entertain the children, and Elena still likes singing. And not just singing - dancing, too.  Moving to the music.  I imagine she's not much different than most three-almost-four-year-olds in her love of movement, but she does indeed love it.

Knowing how much Elena loves dancing, we enrolled her in a toddler's dance class this past November.  It's not a "dance" class, per se - it's more a "movement" class, where the kids practice moving their bodies and listening to the teacher's instructions.

What's more significant, though, is that Elena's attendance in class is something of a milestone for her.  Since we adopted her back in September 2011, she's been out of our sight exactly once - a half-hour experimental stay with her grandmother.  That half-hour stay went relatively smoothly, but we weren't sure how Elena would react to being "left" in a dance class, out of sight of either of her parents.

Lots of kids have separation anxiety, but it's a little different for adopted kids.  Remember that Elena has already been abandoned by her birth parents (and was rather precipitously removed from the orphanage by us), so, for her, a fear of abandonment isn't a nebulous and irrational fear - it's something she's experienced. But life goes on, and it seemed to us that participating in something fun, but short - like a dance class - would be good preparation for the longer separations of preschool, kindergarten, and first grade.

We prepared Elena as best we could-we visited the class the week previously, and explained to her exactly what was going on, and showed her where Mama would be sitting.  Elena was pretty excited about the whole thing. Still, it was not without trepidation that we took her to her first class.  Teresa dressed her in her leotard and tutu (which Elena loves, by the way), drove her to class, and watched her file in with the rest of the toddlers.  Elena looked a little nervous, but...she loved it.  Absolutely loved it.

Dance class tutu

I think she enjoyed the dancing, but she also enjoyed being around kids her age again, something she's done only occasionally over the last year.  So much so that any anxiety she might have had was quickly swept away.

That's a relief, but makes me wonder if I should have been worried in the first place.  There are things that adopted kids in general - and Elena in particular, I'm sure - struggle with more so than most kids, but I wouldn't want my own worries to hold Elena back. Something for me to chew on.

But in the meantime, let her dance, let her dance, let her dance dance dance.

Thanks to the Bobby Fuller Four for the title of this post.

Graphs and charts and leftover kids

So after the last post, I started to wonder - just how significant is the elimination of Russian-American adoption to the Russian orphanage system?  It's obviously hugely significant to the children who have already met an American family, but won't be adopted due to the suddenness of the ban.  And it's obviously hugely significant to those families.  And it's hugely significant to those particular kids that won't be adopted this year or next year or the year after that. 

But how many is that, and how does this number compare to the number of Russian orphans adopted each year by Russian families, or other non-American families?  In the Kotlas orphanage, at least as of 2008 (translation), about half of the children adopted went to non-Russian families.  That's one data point.
For another, I looked at some recent news stories on Russian-American adoption.  Unfortunately, these stories tend to be a bit thin on numbers.  Even the best of them, like this one from the New York Times, throw out a couple numbers and leave it at that.  From that article:

In 2011, about 1,000 Russian children were adopted by Americans, more than any other foreign country, but still a tiny number given that nearly 120,000 children in Russia are eligible for adoption.

American Adoption Statistics
The numbers in the Times story are correct as far as they go, but the impression they leave is somewhat misleading.  The story compares 1,000 adoptions per year to the total number of Russian orphans of all ages - comparing apples and orchards, in other words.  In addition, it turns out that the 1,000 orphans adopted in 2011 by Americans (of which Elena is one) is the lowest number since the early 1990s.  Here, courtesy of the US State Department, is a graph of Russian orphans adopted by Americans in each of the last 19 years:

Russian orphans adopted by American citizens, by year
FY 1993 - 2011, from the US State Department site.

It's rather startling to realize that adoptions of Russian orphans by Americans have already declined 75% compared to a decade ago.  The tighter restrictions imposed since c. 2006 have had a larger effect in reducing the number of Russian orphans adopted by Americans than the last turn of the spigot that completely eliminates the adoption of Russian orphans by Ameroican families.

Even accounting for the recent dropoff, 60,000 Russian orphans have been adopted by Americans since 1993 - and that's not a tiny number at all compared to 120,000.

Russian Adoption Statistics
But the other part of the puzzle is: who else is adopting Russian orphans, and how many are being adopted?  How does the "tiny number" of 1,000 stack up against that?