Driving up to visit my brother and his family, Jaclyn singing loudly in the back seat, she stopped and asked: “why did you want a girl?”
She asks many random things daily. But if you pay attention closely, sometimes she shares her heart in the midst of noise.
I muttered something like “because our hearts were longing for a girl”.
Immediately after she asked: “why did you want to adopt ME?”
Are we ever ready for such blunt curiosity, openness, vulnerability?
“Because we loved YOU before we knew you. Our hearts had a whole of your shape, and you filled it.”
“And who carried me in their tummy?”
Until recently she thought I was joking when I would tell her that her cousins Marc and Juanita born this Fall were in their mommies’ bellies. So I said “a woman, your birth mom, whose name was Maria”. She answered “ah! Ok.” And returned back to her loud singing, right where she left off.
Are we ever ready? Will we always say the right thing? We are open to any and all adoption questions. It is the first time she is interested in her biological roots instead of her foster family.
When daddy gives me a hug, or we have coffee on the couch and Rufus squeezes between us, she comes quickly and says: “make room for me! I was born in the middle! It’s my spot in the sandwich!”