Family Lessons in Phenotypes

Sitting in McDonalds and my boys start talking to a friendly Asian boy. Alex tells a story of a bird flying into our window, then the boy says “One time when I was in Vietnam we were on a bike and ran over a chicken.”

A few more stories and the boy asks if Nathan is his brother. Alex says “Yes that’s my brother and that’s my sister” pointing to Rose. The boy gets this confused look and I know what’s coming. The boy, who looked about 9 years old, said “how come you are different colors?”

Transracial Siblings

I paused and quickly decided to let Alex answer the question, which he didn’t hear at first. So I prompted Alex, “he asked why you are different colors”. So Alex immediately smiles and says “Because she’s adopted!”

I smiled as the boy said “Oh! My mom had me first and then my little sister, but my older sister is my dad’s daughter.”

Interesting!

So then Alex explains that if you get Park Place in McDonalds monopoly you win $1,000,000. The boy immediately retorts “I’m already rich!”

I may have laughed out loud.

Alex talks about if he won he would buy a house and the boy mentions “we just moved here”. Alex then says “from China?” and I am immediately embarressed and say “honey no, he said Vietnam”. The boy is like “What does China have to do with anything? I’m not Chinese. And when I went to Vietnam I was just visiting my grandma.”

I told Alex “China and Vietnam are two different countries, when we get home I will show you on the big map in the playroom.” The boy said “Vietnam is a really long plane ride.”

Then they moved on to talking about grandmas and great-grandmas.

 

Adjusting to Life as a Stay At Home Mom

A month ago, just before we left to fly to Haiti and bring home our new daughter, I left my job as the Director of Engineering for a wastewater treatment equipment company. It’s actually a temporary leave of absence since I plan to go back part time once Rose is in school, but that’s probably two years away.

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Even though I have worked from home for the past ten years, this is very different. I really had no maternity leave with either of my first two children. When you start-up a company and work from home you don’t get maternity leave. You never stop answering the phone or email. The most I did was miss our big annual conference twice. I hated missing that conference each of those years because it’s always so great to see my colleagues, my industry friends and present the great work my company does in front of a large audience.

This year things are so different because I’ve been waiting for this little girl to come home for two and a half years and now she’s here and I wouldn’t dream of having any other focus. I will miss some fun nights in New Orleans but I’ve had enough of those over the years to sustain me for quite some time. I do not yet miss work at all.

My job right now is therapeutic parenting of a little girl who doesn’t even know what a family means. Watching her thrive and blossom has been so joyful and fulfilling, and I can only say it’s a miracle from God that she is doing so well.

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I usually only have one or two big things to get done a day right now and I like it that way. Maybe a trip to the grocery store, maybe some laundry, maybe going to get my allergy shots. I am always happy to get out of the house and talk to some grown-ups, but I try to keep like simple and unhurried.

My little sidekick is very accommodating and I see her using her orphanage coping skills less and less often. Sometimes she thinks she’s the boss of me but I pick my battles and I’m bigger so I can win but I also know how to circumvent or repair any disconnections that happen. Life with Rose is a dance of connecting and disconnecting and reconnecting.  She chooses to shut down instead of throw a tantrum and I don’t like when it happens but I can fix it quickly. A quick game of Patty-cake is my go-to solution, she’s usually up for it and it brings back the smiles and eye contact immediately.

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The toughest time of day for me by far is after the boys get home from school and the couple hours up until dinner. She gets pretty wound up around them and they need to get homework done right away. The boys seem conflicted because they really want to play and engage with her after a long day away but they also know they need to work and sometimes need my help. One thing that has really helped us was creating a new rule to keep the screens off until after dinner. The boys can get sucked into playing Minecraft or watching Stampy videos quickly and that leaves Rose trying to get their attention and them getting annoyed. Since I started that rule they mostly choose to play with their sister, which leaves me peace to go fix dinner.

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So right now I’m pretty much taking one day at a time with her, passing up lots of fun opportunities like blogger conferences or races. I know it’s a season and before I know it she’ll be speaking English and staying with babysitters and life will probably be much like it used to be except with more singing and giggling and talking.

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