Adoption Questions

For those of you who visit our blog to keep track of what the boys are up to, please excuse my next couple of posts.

As our adoption completion draws nearer, I am getting more and more questions about our adoption: Why would you do something like that?, Why Ethiopia?, Why not adopt from here in the States?, Are you infertile?, Are the boys really yours?, Are you trying to be Angelina Jolie?, Won't it be weird having a black child with such blond boys?, How much does that cost?, and the list goes on and on.

We are very fortunate in that the majority of our family and friends have been supportive of our decision to adopt and are waiting excitedly with us. Unkind or rude responses have been the exception to the rule. And, sometimes those unkind responses have simply been out of ignorance or lack of thought as opposed to intentionally offensive. It has been a good growing experience. My normal inclination is to be a fairly private person, so personal questions from strangers or not close acquaintances aren't my favorite thing. But, I am learning to anticipate the questions and then to answer them kindly.

I think that having a ready response is important. It means that I am less likely to be caught off guard and say something I shouldn't or didn't intend to. And, it is important for Rosie and the boys. How Rosie feels about herself, her position in our family, and the fact that she will obviously look very different from the rest of our family will be in large part learned from us in the early years. How the boys learn to respond to those who may someday be unkind will be learned from us, too.

I want my responses to sometimes awkward questions to build Rosie up, to give her confidence in our love, to help her feel secure in her position as our daughter, and to re-enforce the fact that her skin color may be different from ours but that it is beautiful. Most importantly, I want my answers to re-enforce these truths: She is God's creation, created in His image. This gives her a beauty and a worth that is more important and longer-lasting than whatever current trends the world may view as desirable or beautiful. I want her to love her skin color, but more importantly, I want her to value her position as a child of God and to not get caught up on focusing on her self-esteem but rather to focus on God-esteem. So often these days it is easy to get caught in the trap of worrying about how we feel about ourselves and viewing ourselves through our own lenses or others' lenses instead of the using Gods' eyes to see how He sees us, the value He places on us, and recognizing that true beauty in His eyes comes from having a clean heart, pure hands, and a desire to wholly follow Him. Man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart (1 Samuel 16:7).

So, please bear with me as I work my way through these answers. I have always found writing things down helpful if I need to think or process information. This gives me a way to do that, and maybe it will answer questions you might have, too.

Tea for Two

I love that my boys have such different personalities. They may look alike and are often mistaken for twins when siting down so that their height difference doesn't show. But, if you know them, then you know just how different they are.

Noah is usually gentle, compassionate, loving, articulate, and well-mannered. It seems to come fairly easy for him, and he's pretty much always been this way. Nathan was born a ruffian! He came into the world at 9 lb. 12 oz. and seemed to always feel that he had big shoes to fill. He is loud, energetic, rough-and-tumble, and loves dirt and mud more than anything except Mommy.

So, it was much to my surprise when Nathan was the one to invite me to my first tea party. I've been waiting for this day. I always wanted to play tea party with my children but assumed that I was going to have to wait for Rosie to want to have tea parties, as the boys had never shown any inclination towards having one and it didn't quite seem like the perfect game to play with boys. But, once again Nathan has surprised me. He called me to come upstairs and when I did, he had the table all set including quilts for our laps so that we could be "comfy and warm". He proved a perfect host, showed off excellent table manners, and had remembered that I like pears best. Such fun. Now, I have only to hope that Rosie will love to have tea parties too, but that she won't talk him into wearing a pink feather boa while hosting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Getting Ready for Rosie

The last few days have been a flurry of activity, as with a deadline now looming close, the pressure is on to have everything ready for Rosie's homecoming. Today was spent working on the nursery. I just love the 3-d butterflies on the wall. I found them at Pottery Barn Kids, but they were in the wrong colors. But, that was nothing that some spray mount and scrap booking paper wouldn't fix. Now they're perfect. The daybed is actually Nathan's old crib. Toddlers at the transition home sleep in cribs, so we wanted to give Rosie some of the familiarity and comfort of a crib, but also wanted her to be able to get out on her own without risking her crawling over the side. Although he wasn't initially convinced by my plans, my brilliant husband used his wood-working skills to convert it into a daybed. And, it worked out great. As it is just over 4 feet tall and she is just under 3 feet tall it should give her at least a year or two's growing room.

Now, on to the curtains, bed skirt, and shelves. Oh, and the doll's bed. We have a very cute little doll's bed that was given to us, and so I am hoping to get a mattress and little quilt made out of the same fabrics as Rosie's quilts for her to have to put her baby dolls to bed.

I have to say, I am in full nesting mode, just like with both of the boys. I haven't started scrubbing skirting boards and outside windows yet, but with about 5 weeks to go I'll probably mange to get that done, too!!!!!!!

Adoption Update

It's late. Like, after 11:00 (which is late for us), and really, I should have just gone straight to bed. But, I decided to check e-mail to see if Dani had had her baby and to check on Abby Riggs. To my surprise, there was an e-mail titled "New Court Date" in our inbox.

Yes, we have a new court date! Unbeknown to us, our agency petitioned the Ethiopian court system for an earlier court date for several families who were given court dates quite a while after our actual referrals. And, those petitions were granted. We are now scheduled for court on March 27. Yeah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We now have court in 3 weeks and 4 days. Should we pass, we will also have earlier travel dates. We should hear the end of this week or early next week about new travel dates.

Oh my goodness. I need to get busy. I have so much to do to get ready. I need to change the ticker on the top of my blog!!! I just put it up this morning.

But, seriously, all excitement aside, I am so grateful. God is obviously moving in the hearts of Ethiopian officials and in the court system. Several months ago when things began to slow down for families who were waiting for court dates and for thsoe who were not passing court, our little "yahoo group adoption family" began to pray together for God to intervene and to be faithful to His promise to "set the orphans in families" . Last month, a couple of the ladies divided up each day into 48 1/2-hour segments and many of us signed up to cover a half-hour slot on a daily basis so that we could quite literally pray without ceasing for our children, those working on our children's behalf, and for all of the officials whose paperwork, signatures, and blessing were needed for adoptions to be completed. And, we are now watching as God does amazing things in Ethiopia. Last month saw record numbers of children referred, and now we watch in awe as March begins with more great news. God is good!

And now, I really must go to bed. The next couple of weeks are going to be even busier than I thought!