My oldest daughter has been in my home longer than she was in an orphanage in Vietnam. And sometimes it’s easy to convince myself that those 6 and ½ months in the orphanage didn’t have much of an effect on her, but I am often reminded that it did. As my youngest daughter, who is 8 months old, explores and crawls around our home, it triggers memories of Elise doing the same.

As my youngest crawls everywhere seamlessly transitioning from seasgrass rug to laminate flooring to carpet, a memory of Elise walking around the edge of the seagrass rug for several months comes to mind. As my youngest grabs Elise’s plush hand me down toys, it strikes me that Elise never played with that toy, but she did enjoy all things plastic. As my youngest, latches on to a lovey, a baby doll, or a stuffed purple monkey, I remember Elise not loving a stuffed animal until she was one. And since turning three in June, Elise now has many stuffed animals and a favorite blanket.

After many months, Elise learned to branch out from just plastic toys, and she stopped walking around the edge of our seagrass rug. Currently, she prefers cotton knit pants to jeans and will occasionally don a bathing suit in the winter, but that could just be three-year-old antics.

The way Elise coped with different textures is a part of sensory processing. Sensory processing is something adoptive parents should educate themselves about. Dr. Karyn Purvis talks about sensory processing in this video:

Print PDF

Also Found In: Tapestry Blog