I've had a LOT of firsts here, with this 2nd adoption...which, I find ironic in and of itself. But I've been baffled, bowled over, flummoxed and dazed with this.
I admit, I'm not a "fall in love the instant I see the pic" kinda girl. I admit, I'm scared shitless about at least 3 things about this new adoptionevery day...the whole "life is good, are we tipping the apple cart thing" down to "how the heck can I guess what color an 8 year old is going to want her walls to be painted". But I'm also totally excited...But I get that us adopting an 8 year old with a minor limb difference is not something most people do, and definetly outside the comfort zone of all the on-lookers outside of adoption world.
I guess I really never ever expected that people would focus more on her age than her SN. I researched her SN and if I wasn't comfortable with it, I wouldn't be doing it, right??? But I thought for sure, being a physically visible deformity people would get their undies in a bunch about that part of this endeavour.
I've had one neighbor ask me if I'm "too impatient to wait for the baby", labelling what we are doing as a "move marked by fear, not education". Same neighbor told me that she has a 6 and a 3 year old, so she's more experienced at parenting, which is true, and then followed it up with something that distinctly said "so where the hell do you get off thinking you can be successful cause you aren't as good at this as me."
I've had people completely focus on the fact that "what if she's in a bad foster home"? Or, "what if she's in a good foster home and doesn't want to leave?" Both situations...doesn't matter in the end - they are not a permanent situation for this child. If she's in a bad one, which I doubt, cause it's thru HTS, then, well, we help her catch up with whatever she has to catch up, and come to terms with what she has to come to terms with. If she's in a good one, then she'll mourn, and we'll help her thru it, and if possible, we'll keep that connection for her. But it's not a family!
I've had people tell me she's going to be easier than H...that because of her age, she'll know what she's getting, so she'll be so excited and grateful to have a family after all these years. I hope she's grateful to have a family because I know I am, but I don't hope for her to thank me for taking her in...including a member of our adoption agency who said she'll be just so happy to have us.
I've seen people on forums state that we have to be prepared for a GED receiving child who may want to live working menial work. That one shocked me - this is someone who has seen so many children be adopted. Why is my child adopted at almost 9 going to be getting a GED?
See, the thing is, there's a bigger issue here...one that no one wants to say. It applies to all of us, adopted, bio, alien, whatever. Life a lot of times hands you crap. Sometimes it's a tiny little pellet you can toss into the toilet and not worry about - other times, it's a big steaming stinky runny pile and it takes a shitload (pardon the pun) of effort to clean it up. What makes the person is not the pile of crap, but how they deal with it. Some people see the tiny turd as a huge mountain and live their life by it. Some see the big pile as something that needs to be dealt with and another as a life-stopping event. And then there's some people who see it all as a great source of fertilizer...
My job is to teach my daughters, and remember it often myself, cause I'm the queen of pessimism...that they have every right to feel how they feel about the pile laid at their feet by the dog of life. But they have a choice of how to let it affect them. They can learn from it, grow from it, and strengthen from it, or just end up covered in it as they roll in their sorrow. I have to equip them with the tools to shovel, and hopefully utilize the shit for good...not just the tools to cope by clothespinning their noses.
All of us have these piles. And yeah, my kids have some pretty damn big ones to deal with for such little ones. My job is to teach them that it's ok to lick your wounds, but it's up to them to take these trials and own them, tame them, and grow from them.
And that leads to the pile that I'm now helping H clean up right now. Never in a million years did I expect that this would already be causing her to start processing her own adoption. Heck, the kids not even 3 quite yet...she's seen a video of her sister, and we talk about her jiejie, so how much does she really get? And maybe she's not - maybe it's just the thought that came in her head today...but she woke up last night (and she's been known to have night terrors, minor ones, in the past, so not shocking), and today after 25 minutes of nap she woke up screaming. She said she was scared of whatever noun I tossed out there...sleep, her stuffy dog, me, the window, the airplane tomorrow, the blanket, the lamp, etc...so I wasn't getting anywhere with guessing. Then she sobbed "A...."and I asked if she wanted to go to China. She nodded. I don't know if it means anything or not. She couldn't tell me what about her - she wanted to go to China - I don't know if she wants to go back, if she wants A here, if she is remembering something...or it's just random. But it's not what I expected to hear as the cause of her distress when I ran up the stairs to try and calm the screaming...
Not where I expected to end up today, but I guess that's how these brain dribblings usually go.
