Early Stages of Talking About Adoption

Before I become and adoptive parent I read books and blog posts about talking with your kids about adoption and challenges that lay ahead. Making sure my daughter has high self esteem always has been a big focus for me and how I wanted to approach parenting. I think if you have a good foundation as a person you can handle life's challenges better.

But I never thought about early years in my daughter life and how she would come to understand adoption, birth, etc.

At this point, my daughter is three. I don't think she fully grasps that she is different or even what birth means. I have to wonder when this light bulb will go off and she will know she isn't my biological child. She is very clingy to me and want to be very close to me, which is great. We have had a huge break through with bonding in the past year. But it is heart breaking to me for her to be sadden by this.

I guess I always thought of conversation we would have at seven or teenage years. But I never thought of these early years and how she came to our family. Just basic understanding of being adopted.

We have the adoption books and we celebrate family day and talk about her birth mom. But I don't think she gets it at this point.

Last night I was hit by a ton of bricks. We where reading a adoption book we made for her with pictures of our family and her adoption day. When she said to me:

"I don't want you to leave me" I said what do you mean, she proceeded

"I don't want to go live with those nannies in Vietnam" "I don't want you to leave me there"

At that moment I realize she doesn't understand that we had never been apart from each other. And she thought we left her at the orphanage. We talked long about her birth mom and how we went through the process of adopting her and would never leave her.

This was heartbreaking, and I'm still trying to figure it all out in my head. Obviously we need to work on this and take some new approaches to the subject. Being a parent is so hard, and being an adoptive parents brings additional challenges to the table. I knew we would face challenges, and hope I can find the right path to answer these questions for her.

Fall

Fall is here and we are getting plenty of rain here in the bay area. It's a nice reason to get out some of those warmer clothes that have been hiding in the closet.

Dinker do is riding a two wheel bike now, with training wheels of course. She is loving having kids in the neighborhood to play with. She has her pumpkin costume all picked out and is ready for pumpkin day.

We are still waiting it out for #2, really don't want to wait until 2011 or later for Vietnam to reopen but at this point feel it might be the best thing for our family. It really is sad that there are children waiting for families right now as we speak. Shame on the people who abused the system.

Princess

My daughter somehow knows who the Disney princess are. I don't really know how that happened since we don't really watch T.V. I guess she is picking this up from daycare. So now it's all about princesses.

I decided she could pick out a toy for herself at target. After looking at the toys I realize that target has only a few types of toys, baby toy, baby dolls, barbie and 'boy toys'. She went straight to the princesses. I keep having this internal guilt for buying her a Cinderella doll, even though that's the one she wanted. I kept asking if she wanted the snow white doll. After all snow white has brown hair not blond. But no, she wanted the Cinderella doll.

I don't feel quite right about this, it's pretty complex. I don't want to only push the ethnic dolls on her but buying a skinny white doll for my beautiful dark VN toddler seems wrong. I mean really, who is Cinderella. I surely have never met anyone like her! And don't get me starting on Barbie. Now they have different kinds of Barbie. But really they are the after thought not really Barbie. I think it's great but again, seems like an after thought.

So, how do I balance miss skinny and ethnic dolls? Not sure I have figured this out and in the end she might only want the miss skinny anyway, which makes me sad.

Potty Visits

We now have a new favorite pass time, visiting the potty. Our daughter isn't doing anything on the potty, but likes to spend time going to and from the potty. I have spent about five times as much time in the bathroom as I normally do. I think we are getting closer since she asks to go and isn't scared of the potty anymore. Any parents out there have some experience with them actually going on the potty?

parenting

I want to try to get in the habit of posting again, life is so busy but I have found in the past writing is away to slow down and make sense of it all!

So, here it goes.

dinker do is 2 1/5 now, and changing so much. She is a little person. She is so funny and full of laughter and smiles.

I had no idea that being a parent was so hard, I know silly. I thought we would just need to provide loads of love that would some how solve everything. Boy was I wrong. Somehow being a parent seems so straight forward when you aren't one.

We have been having some power struggle, tantrums, and potty issues with are dear sweet daughter. I came to the conclusion that we are still treating her like a baby even thou so is not. This came about after a long conversation with my husband on why things are going badly. I have been trying to think of more and more things for her to do on her own. I think it helps her feel in more empowered. I'm going to stop doing so much for her. Again back to the baby thing, we are doing everything for her.

Yesterday was a horrible day, at pickup she proceeded to have a huge fit, screaming, crying, on the floor you name it, she did it. I picked her up walked to the car and listen to her scream the whole way home. She is persistent. I have to be honest, it's embarrassing. I know I shouldn't be embarrassed. But I feel like I'm being judged as a mom every time she has a super huge meltdown. It's frustrating.