In talking with M about our adoption, we’ve tried to be really open with her and include her in conversation even from the beginning. We first explained to her that there are some children who don’t have mommies and daddies to take care of them, and so we want to help take care of them and bring them into our family so that we can be their mommy and daddy and she can be the big sister. We told her that God wants every child to have a home and a family that loves them.
She seemed to groove with this idea right away. She liked the idea of being someone’s big sister, even though I’m not really sure she knew what that means. She was saddened at the thought of lonely children without parents, but was really excited to help a child find a forever family. We were encouraged that she sort of seemed to understand, in her own two-and-a-half-year-old way, what it is we were jumping into.
That was back in February and March. The past couple of weeks, however, M seems to be displaying – shall I say – a bit of confusion on this subject. Perhaps we haven’t followed through effectively in conversation with her about the adoption. Here’s a conversation we had about two weeks ago:
M: I’m so excited about my little brother or little sister!
Katie: I know – me, too! I can’t wait until we can bring them home.
M: Do you think it will be a turtle?
Katie: Uh…what?!?
M: I hope it’s a turtle!! I love turtles! (pronounced like: I YUV turtles!)
Katie: Uh, honey…we’re not adopting a turtle. We’re adopting a little boy or a little girl.
M: A little boy turtle or a little girl turtle?
Katie: No, sweetie. A little boy PERSON or a little girl PERSON. (said while desperately trying to avoid cracking up laughing) A turtle can’t be a brother or sister. A turtle can’t be our child. Only a person can do that.
M: Oh. (looking slightly disappointed)
After that, we started talking about the adoption a bit more. We’d been so busy slogging through all of our paperwork for our home study, waiting on lab reports and references, that we just hadn’t been saying much about it lately; there wasn’t much to say. I thought we’d better start bringing it up in conversation again more regularly to help her understand things a bit better.
Another week went by and it seemed like she was starting to catch on. Then, last week we were out for a drive and the subject came up again.
M: Mama, when are we going to get my little brother or little sister?
Katie: I don’t know, sweetie. Soon, I hope, but it will still be a little while. It takes a little while.
M: I hope it’s a dog!
Katie: WHAT?!?!
M: I hope it’s a doggy! It would be fun to have a doggy!
Katie: We’re not adopting a dog, you crazy girl!
M: A cat then?
(No response from me, due to uncontrolled laughter…)
The child needs a sibling asap, or we’re going to wind up fending off animal requests for quite awhile…