Misplaced Concern

We’ve always been very open and matter-of-fact with Elaina about her adoption.  The last thing that Heidi and I want is for Elaina to discover in her 20s that she’s Korean and wonder why we never told her! 

We don’t really belabor the point, but she’s seen pictures of her foster parents, she’s had Korean food, and there’s a Korean grocery we visit sometimes.  So, you know, the whole adoption/Korea thing is not news to her, though I’m sure her understanding of it is a little vague.

Heidi made a point of getting things from Korea that we could trickle out to Elaina on birthdays, etc.  One of those is a book that recently showed up among the books Elaina chooses from for a before-bed book.  I don’t really know what it’s about (it’s all in Korean), so I just describe the pictures to her.  Maybe she’s been drawn to it lately because it’s new, maybe because everyone in it looks more like her than most people she sees. 

The first page has a drawing of the Earth, so I’m telling her, “This is where we live.  It’s called ‘Earth’, and it’s mostly water…”, and so on and so on.  She actually seems to kind of get it.  Tonight, Elaina pointed to the most prominent land mass and said, “That’s where we live.”  Interestingly, just like pictures of globes in the U.S. tend to show North America, in this book, Asia is prominent, so that’s where she was pointing. 

“Actually,” I said, “that’s where you were born, and where you lived for awhile when you were a baby.  We live over here,” I said, pointing.  “Mommy and I flew on a plane all the way over to…there [pointing]…to meet you, and the three of us flew all the way back home.” 

Later, as we were putting books away and turning out the light, Elaina said, “I missed you and Mommy.”

“What do you mean sweetie?  Missed us when?”

“I missed you when I was in Korea.”

Okay, now, that’s pretty cute.  “Oh…sweetie, we missed you too.  We were so excited to finally meet you and bring you home.”

“I don’t want to be in Korea,” Elaina continued.  “I want to stay with you and Mommy.”

“Of course you’ll stay with me and Mommy.  You don’t need to worry about that.  This is your home and we’re your family—always.” 

We had a little talk about the rock-solid permanence of this arrangement.  I think she gets it, but it didn’t keep her from reminding me a couple more times that she didn’t want to be in Korea and that wanted to stay with us.  I can’t imagine what makes a three year old even begin to question the solidity of her family situation.  Well, I guess I can imagine, since she has had some changes in that area, but I imagined it would be another few years before I had to be reassuring her about this stuff.