Being away from home

We are currently staying with some friends on a sheep farm.  We're having a lovely time with lots of good company and good food.  If you follow the link on my blog to the Back of Beyond Baking then you'll get an idea of how good the food is.  I'm getting Mrs Vander-Cave quite inspired with gluten-free cooking now!  We went on the most amazing walk yesterday to British Camp.  Lots of effort and puff was required to get to the top of the hill but the panoramic view from the top was simply amazing.  The wind was so strong that it almost blew Katie away!

Bringing young children away for overnight trips and holidays is lovely.  Katie gets lots of new experiences.  She loves playing with our friends 10 year old son and he tries very hard not to see her as a bit of a pain.  The main difficulty of bringing Katie away, is at bedtime.  Getting her to go to sleep is a total nightmare.  The first night we arrived late and Katie was already asleep so we put her straight into her Peppa Pig blow up bed.  She then woke up at 2am and panicked because it was too dark.  It was pretty dark so I could totally understand her anxiety.  Katie doesn't do anything quietly however so the whole house was woken up.  We put the hall light on and soothed her back to sleep.  An hour and a half later she was awake again and had no desire to go back to sleep.  We put her in our bed and tried every trick in the book to get her to give in and sleep again.  She eventually gave in at about 5am.  She was so tired yesterday and had a sleep in the car, whilst we were driving to British Camp, to catch up.

Last night she refused to give in and sleep at bedtime.  She kept our friends son awake and he had to move into his parents bed.  Katie then decided she wanted to sleep in our bed.  She then was found with all her My Little Pony's on the landing playing with them because "they kept falling down on the bed".  We then discovered she had Daddy's phone when he phoned me, but was sitting next to me.  Daddy turned the phone off and let her hold it but she managed to turn it back on and phone me again!! This continued in one form or another until she finally gave in and slept at around 10.30pm.  She would normally be in bed ready to sleep by 7pm!  We kept her in our bedroom in her bed last night and it was a much better night, except for a rude awakening around 3am with another panic.  Katie was reassured by our presence however and slept until nearly 8am.  She is currently playing Charlie and Lola on the Cebeebies website.  I think she'll be tired again later though.

Her bedtime antics sparked a discussion about whether her behaviour was simply a nearly 4 year olds typical behaviour or whether it was linked to being adopted.  We had been told during our Preparation Course that adopted children often don't cope with being taken away for holidays because they worry that they won't be going home and it can spark off anxieties from being moved into foster care.  I don't think this is the case for Katie at all.  It's more simply strange surroundings and a different routine and, a little bit of "what can I get away with?"  She is confident about where she lives and seems very secure in her attachments to both myself and Daddy and other adults in our lives.  I hope she gets better as she gets older though.  Please reassure me it gets better!!!

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  1. It does get better, I promise! Pinky swear! XXX

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