Friday, September 09, 2005

Now that she's almost 7...

My youngest daughter will be 7 in December. She's now at the age where she's beginning to understand that to be with her adoptive family ** now ** there is birth family who was unable to take care of her and keep her ** then **.

Last night, as she was getting ready to close her eyes and we spent a few quiet moments in the dark together, she heard my son say he saw another shooting star. (We live close to an airport. I think he sees planes, but that's another story.)

Daughter says, "I think Brother made a wish about his birth mom." "Really," I replied. "What kind of wish do you think he made?" But she didn't respond. Then she looked at me and started to say, "Why didn't my birth mom keep ..." and then she immediately rephrased, "Why couldn't my birth mom take care of me?"

We spoke about the reasons why a birth mom couldn't take care of a little baby and why sometimes a different family is needed. I also mentioned that it's okay to love your birth mom and your "lucky" mom (that's me) all together. She never has to make a choice. There's plenty love enough to go around.

That was good enough to sleep on.

It was interesting to me to watch her process the information and change "why didn't she keep me" to "why couldn't she take care of me".

Maybe I'm doing a little something right, at least for now.

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