Something old, something new...
Adoption is super weird sometimes.
Most days it is like normal parenting. Our children get up, go to school, come home and do homework. We eat as a family, watch a little TV, and then get everyone ready for bed. Our children occasionally fight with each other (and by occasionally I mean at least ten times a day). The issues that come up at our house are generally the same issues as all parents of tween sisters. In general, the past stays in the past.
But once in a while -- usually when we least expect it -- the past comes back in a flash. This week it was the photo of bio parents that one child has stuck in her homework folder at school. When going through her papers she came across it and said "Oh, hi there mommy! I love this picture…it's so pretty!" And that was the end of it. She stuck the picture back in her folder with the rest of her homework and the night moved on like nothing had ever happened.
Except that it did happen. And it was a strange reminder that these children are ours…sort of. Some days it feels like they are 100% ours and some days it feels like we are just borrowing them until they are old enough to track down their "real" parents.
Now is the time to make peace with the eventuality that our girls will seek out their biological parents. Who knows what that will look like. I suspect they will track them down someday and will have a sort of friendly relationship with their bio parents, rather than a parental one. And that will probably be okay. My fear is that they will seek them out in a moment of anger toward us, thinking lots of "what if" thoughts about how life could have been if they were with their biological family. I'm sure even now that they dream a little about how much easier it would be to have parents who expect very little and give in to every whim.
Someday that's all a bridge we will surely cross. Until then I will enjoy the 99% of the time that they are content with their something new and life is normal.
Most days it is like normal parenting. Our children get up, go to school, come home and do homework. We eat as a family, watch a little TV, and then get everyone ready for bed. Our children occasionally fight with each other (and by occasionally I mean at least ten times a day). The issues that come up at our house are generally the same issues as all parents of tween sisters. In general, the past stays in the past.
But once in a while -- usually when we least expect it -- the past comes back in a flash. This week it was the photo of bio parents that one child has stuck in her homework folder at school. When going through her papers she came across it and said "Oh, hi there mommy! I love this picture…it's so pretty!" And that was the end of it. She stuck the picture back in her folder with the rest of her homework and the night moved on like nothing had ever happened.
Except that it did happen. And it was a strange reminder that these children are ours…sort of. Some days it feels like they are 100% ours and some days it feels like we are just borrowing them until they are old enough to track down their "real" parents.
Now is the time to make peace with the eventuality that our girls will seek out their biological parents. Who knows what that will look like. I suspect they will track them down someday and will have a sort of friendly relationship with their bio parents, rather than a parental one. And that will probably be okay. My fear is that they will seek them out in a moment of anger toward us, thinking lots of "what if" thoughts about how life could have been if they were with their biological family. I'm sure even now that they dream a little about how much easier it would be to have parents who expect very little and give in to every whim.
Someday that's all a bridge we will surely cross. Until then I will enjoy the 99% of the time that they are content with their something new and life is normal.
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