Jane Brown Playshop

This weekend was very interesting. Jane Brown was in town. Jane Brown, mom to 8, is a social worker from Arizona along with other titles, who works a lot with children who were adopted. I went to a presentation she gave for parents of adopted children. She presented on, 'Adoption and the media.' Very interesting talk.

She also did several 'playshops' over the weekend for the children. Meikiina participated in a playshop on Saturday morning. She was very apprehensive about going, and told me several times after I signed up that she's not going to that play thing. She has a very hard time in groups and in new situations. She also has a hard time separating from me in unknown situations. When we arrived, Jane Brown did a quick activity together with the parents and children together. Then she had the parents raise their right hand and swear that we would not leave our children, and that if our child needed us they would come get us and we would be there likkety split. Meikiina happily gave me a hug and kiss and 'I love you' and went off with the group. It was a nice size group of kids, with 10 in the group. I heard Sunday's group had 25. Meikiina would have had a much harder time in the larger group. After a couple hours, Jane Brown brought the kids down and took the parents with her. She told us what topics had been discussed and what they had done together. She did not tell anyone anything specific that the kids had said. She said it's her job to talk to the kids and have them talk to her. It's the kids job to talk to their parents, and it's not Jane Brown's job to talk to their parents. I won't go into detail about what they did or talked about, as I feel that it's something that is for Meikiina alone (and for me if she ever wants to talk).

Meikiina did have a good time, because when we were walking out of the building, she said, "When is Jane Brown's next class?" I told her that this time she is having one more Saturday afternoon and one on Sunday. She said, "Well, why can't we go to the other one she is having today?"

I had a hard time deciding what I should do this weekend. I had paid (quite a sum of money) for this weekend several months ago. Then this week uncle Vern passed away. Oh, how I wanted to go to the funeral. I may have been able to switch Meikiina to Sunday, but she has a real hard time too, with too much activity in any one weekend. So what to do - go to the funeral Saturday up north, and playshop on Sunday and have a very anxious child all week long, or go to the playshop like we had scheduled on Saturday and not go to the funeral. I think I made the right decision. It was a very hard day (emotionally) for Meikiina. Lots of tough topics come up. I know it brought some thoughts. She woke up in the night scared. She kept telling me she's scared. I had to lay down with her and hold her to me all night.

I emailed Jane Brown to thank her and ask her for some feedback on something and she emailed me back. Here was a little bit of her email... "I am glad that your sweet daughter had a positive experience. She is very very dear-- expressive, curious, eager to share and take in all that others have to say." How could I not brag about that? :-)