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Ha! The new space-age polymer bibs were no match for my drool machine! But that’s ok–they are a little thicker, so it takes a little longer, I guess. We are all about the Camilia drops right now, and that little gummer toothbrush–she actually uses it herslf. And a little Tylenol for good measure. I wouldn’t be surprised if we have another pair of teeth appearing in the near future.

ADOPTION THOUGHTS FOR THE DAY:
Yesterday at church I was with the Babe, and I realized that in our little section, there were two other families who’ve adopted. Including the Babe, there were 6 children in our section alone who were adopted within the past 10 years.

After Mass, one of these moms came up to me to ask for help with an “Adoption Awareness” bulletin board for our local library this fall and to offer an apology. The bulletin board I knew about, but an apology?

Turns out she’d seen L at the library, and asked about the bulletin board there–and then, in hindsight, wondered if he was comfortable discussing the Babe’s adoption in front of others/strangers.

This led into an interesting discussion of how we will have to handle situations in the future. I think I’ve posted about this before–right now it’s all “Yippe!! We adopted! Let’s tell the world!”, but in a few years, when the Babe is more aware, it won’t really be our story to tell.

She empathized–her boys are from China, so it’s pretty obvious they are adopted. And right now, she’s all about explaining the “waiting children” (preschoolers and older) in China–the girls and the boys with minor (and sometimes not so minor)physical challenges who are literally in orphanages waiting to be adopted. She likes to explain the medical treatments her boys have had for the purposes of education–she wants to build awareness, and so forth. But she also knows that as the boys get older, it will not be her story tell–it will be theirs.

So I told her that no, L wasn’t offended or uncomfortable–that we do like to talk about and educate the world about adoption any chance we get. But that as the Babe gets older, we may want to that more privately, and that she’ll be learning how to tell her story or how to politely decline the opportunity.

And I’m glad that in our little community, she’ll have plenty of peers in similiar situations to work through what she’ll need to work through!

That’s what they call things like teething biscuits and what not–the food that’s hard enough baby can’t gnaw off a chunk (theoretically), but will dissolve with enough saliva.

So this weekend I bought some graham crackers–what a hit! It was hilarious. If I were up for mother of the year, I’d probably post some pics of this rite of passage. Who knows, we may get some photos up here yet.

Had a lovely visit with Grandma and Grandpa (my folks) this weekend–they are SUCH fans–of course she’s advanced, beautiful and perfect–just ask them! They came bearing some “dribble proof” bibs–cloth, but with some sort of new-aged polymer backing so that they don’t soak through so quickly. We’ll be field testing them this week. With 2 teeth in and more on the way, life’s a little soggy right now.

But in a good way.

It’s a year ago this week that we attended our first orientation/interviews with our agency. How’s that song from Rent go? “525,600 minutes..how do you measure a year?” I don’t even know where to begin!!!

So I’ve been reading some adoption blogs here and there these past few weeks, and I guess I’ve been surprised by the number of aparents who are against/nervous about open adoption and the potential for a relationship with a bmom. For whatever reason,it was never a big deal for us.

We were surprised when we learned about open adoption–but that was just becuase we didn’t know much about adoption in general. Our agency pitched open adoption in a way that made it sound like it was best for the child. Why? Because most adoptees have questions, and who better to answer those questions then the bmom. The bmoms are counseled to understand that they aren’t “the mom”, that the child they placed will have parents (chosen by her), and that there are boundaries.

Of course, it’s easy when your Babe is 5 months old. We’ll see if it gets tricky when she’s 5 years old. But what we are thinking, and hoping, is that whatever our relationship is, she’ll take it in stride b/c that’s the way it is.

I can see the arguement that it’s up to the child to decide what kind of relationship (if any) she’d like with her bfamily–but isn’t that a lot to expect from a child (or teenager)? It’s like not imposing your religion on a child because as she grows she may not agree with you. WTF? You’re the parents, it’s your job to instill values. What she does with them later is up to her.

So I guess we’ve decided one of our values is to respect and acknowledge the people who created our lovely daughter, chose to give her life, and chose us to be her parents. She needs to know that we respect these two people for those reasons, and that’s why we include them in our lives.

When she’s older, she can choose to do the same thing or not–but atleast we know that we’ve done all we can to instill that value by leading by example.

As with so many other things on this parenting roller coaster, we just hope we’re doing the right thing.