Still watery-eyed and sneezing
I hate head colds because I can’t think properly when I’m living with one. And I can’t make the two phone calls I need to make because I sound like a rhinoceros is sitting on my head. (I’ll make ‘em tomorrow, I guess.) Yesterday I worked on breaking everything I need to do down into teensy-tiny baby steps so that I could do a little bit at a time and then go upstairs and lie down. See, this part is like having a real job only without sick pay or even unpaid leave. Rats.
The kids woke up early to decorate the house for Halloween. Madison remembers doing all of this last year (when she was two!) because she’s like an elephant with her memory. Honestly, she remembers stuff like crazy. Noah does, too. He remembers the apartment we lived in when he was two. I’ve decided I have the smartest kids alive.
Madison and I are picking Jessica up from work today. I’m going to do my best to stay far away from Jessica who doesn’t need a cold to derail her incredibly busy school/work schedule. Madison is very excited because Jessica bought her glittery toenail polish.
Erin (who has the cutest little Who-ville of a child over there) posted something about parents with bio kids who worry about openness being unfair to said bio kid to which she says, “What the heck?” (Or as Madison says, “What the hoogah?”) So allow me to pontificate on openness and Noah.
Noah figured out early on that adoption that included the first parents made sense since he was involved in the waiting, involved in our first match and unmatch, involved in the candles we lit and prayers we sent to the family who would one day choose us. He didn’t meet Jessica until after Madison was born but then we (Brett and I) only met her once ourselves. She and I talked on the phone a lot but we only saw her that once when we first officially matched.
You may recall (if you’ve been reading that long) that I wasn’t sure about Noah meeting Madison before the surrenders were signed because I was worried it would be hard on him but then I changed my mind because if Madison did end up coming home with us, I wanted him to meet her the first time with Jessica. I wanted him to be able to tell her about that meeting (especially since we had no idea how our relationship might change and if Jessica would be a part of our lives, etc.) and we wanted him to see his sister with her first mom so he would truly understand where she came from. And if Madison didn’t come home, I wanted him to be able to say good-bye, too, and to know that little girl was ok with her mom.
(On my facebook account is a picture of them from the first time they met. Noah was very shy with her — wouldn’t touch her — but enamored all the same.)
Once Madison came home and Jessica started visiting, Noah was someone she could relate to because while Jessica hasn’t had a ton of baby experience, she has a little sister just a year younger than Noah and her best friend, Sam, has a nephew about Noah’s age. He could help break the ice during nervous first meetings and I remember on our very first mother’s day celebration that he came out with his whole collection of micropets and entertained us all with them. Also Sam is a huge batman fan and Noah has his share of batman paraphernalia (although his super hero of choice — at the time — was more spiderman).
Noah really loves Jessica and Nate and Sam. In fact, we’ve had to talk to him about giving Jessica and Madison their space because he handles their visits with the same show-off enthusiasm that he welcomes visits from grandparents. You know, he brings out all of his latest toys, shows off his cool dance moves and generally is excited about having visitors to his humble home. He also had a good time when D (Jessica’s little sister) came to visit.
Noah instinctively understands how and why Jessica matters to us and to Madison. He notices when Madison does things that remind him of Jessica (and now D — Madison makes a lot of faces that look like D these days! Particularly her, “You said what?!” face). He talks to her about Jessica, and he talks to her about when she came home and how he fed her a bottle and watched television with her on his lap and how he picked out a pink poodle for her while we were at the hospital.
He’s also training us. He asked about Madison’s bio dad a long time ago and he’s talked about his concerns (pre-adoption) about having a family that doesn’t match and then later about feeling worried about people not realizing that she’s his sister. (He takes great pride in her and it bothered him to think that people might not assume that he’s her brother because they don’t have the same skin color.) As it turns out, he’s been able to model matter-of-fact responses to people — mostly kid — questions for Madison like, “Yes, she is my sister and yes, she’s adopted.”
Jessica makes time for Noah and has brought gifts especially for him. Like when Madison was tiny and she brought over a bunch of candy she’d won from her job for Noah. While she is definitely Madison’s special person (I mean, it’s not like she pretends to be Noah’s birth mom, too, you know?) she does have a relationship with Noah. She asks him what he’s going to be for Halloween, she helped him carve a pumpkin when she had them over for pumpkins. She tells him stories about how she used to tease her little brother and she laughs when he tells stories about teasing Madison.
There was a brief time at the beginning when Noah felt like it wasn’t fair that he didn’t have his own Jessica and sometimes he feels left out when I have to pull him aside and remind him to give Madison some time with Jessica because he wants to play, too. But he does get it and he likes having her in our family. Jessica matters to him and he looks forward to her visits. He’s not confused by it — honestly, I think kids can get this stuff better than grown-ups sometimes because they don’t bring as much baggage to it.
Edited to add: If anyone has any questions about Noah and our adoption, ask away. I’ll hit him up for answers if need be; he won’t mind.
First off Cindy Lou thanks you. She *is* pretty cute
Second, I am so thankful for the queen. She roots for us to have biological children, and I’m sure that she would develop a special relationship with them. I can’t imagine how having another person to love a child would ever be a bad thing. Seriously can kids ever have to many people to love them? I doubt it.
It strikes me that this is one area where a few extra years between kids would help a lot. A 7 year old Noah (is that how old he was?) was probably much better equipped to understand why it’s ‘fair’ that Madison gets special time with Jessica than a 3 or 4 year old Noah would have been.
Not that the potential jealousy of a 3 or 4 year old older sibling is a good argument against openness at all, but I do think it would be harder to address the inevitable jealousy with a younger child. Not impossible and certainly worthwhile, but still harder.