Roland's sister

The last thirteen days have been rough. My daughter got sick before flying to Philadelphia for her knee surgery. Each day we expected to fly the 3,000 miles back home. But against the odds her stubborn cough cleared just enough (after four solid days of stressing over it) to be eligable for surgery. We went through a week of hard recovery after that. Now we're finally back to a good sleeping/eating/physical therapy pattern. Exhausting.

Now I'm stressing over the thirteen days we lost. I knew surgery and recovery would be hard and long, and I thought I'd given myself permission not to stress over adoption paperwork after it was over. But I'm just looking at everything that needs done and stressing away.

When Laelia woke up from surgery one of the first things she said was, "When my baby brother has surgery, I'm going to hold his hand." As the nurse came in with yucky medicine Laelia then said, "And I'm gonna give Roland lots of medicine!" Since her tone went gleeful at that thought I shot her a look. She quickly added, "Because I love him." :)

We have now seen the movie Tangled almost forty times in the last two weeks. It was set on replay throughout the nights and days of Laelia's hospital stay. She can now quote most of the movie and her favorite character is Mother Gothel. She loves to sing the Mother Knows Best song too. It's pretty hilarious. But it wasn't until one late night conversation that I realized this movie is really terrible when teaching your kid about adoption! Haha! The conversation we had was full of pitfalls.

Laelia: "Why was Rapunzel sad when the bad lady died?"
Me: "Because it was her mother."
Laelia: "No it wasn't her real mother!"

Okay, one of the first pitfalls people fall into when talking about adoption is asking, "But who's your real mom?" You never say "real mom" when referring to someone's biological mom. Your adoptive mom AND your biological mom are BOTH your real mom! In some cases the biological mom would not be referred to as the "real" mom at all. In our case I have to believe Roland's birth mom is a lovely woman giving us (and her son) an opportunity to be a beautiful family. I have to believe that because otherwise it makes no sense to me. She's his real mom. I'm his real mom. Clear as mud? Anyway...

But with Mother Gothel... well okay Laelia has me there. Mother Gothel is not Rapunzel's real mom--not biologically and not legally and not honestly. But she loved her like a mom. Now Roland will be our son legally and honestly. The difference is that he needs a family and we get the privilege of following all of the $#*&$% rules to get him. Mother Gothel just stole her baby. That was wrong.

I think Laelia understood that. It's hard with four year olds. Sometimes I think she understands something and I'm mistaken. For instance, tonight Laelia and I were praying for the orphans in Roland's part of the world who have arthrogryposis like he does. We were especially praying for Laurel who you can see at the side of this blog. She will age out soon and needs a family quickly and desperately. (I have written about her on Laelia's blog.) Then Laelia started praying with the same urgency for Joel. "Please God help his family find him. Please God let him be 'dopted. God, he needs a mommy and daddy! Please hurry!"

Me (interrupting prayer time): "Honey, Joel has a family. We're his family."
Laelia: "I get TWO brothers?!"
Me: "No, Joel is a pretend name so we can call him something. His real name is secret. When we adopt him then his new name will be Roland."

Poor little thing thought Joel was without hope because she didn't quite get that Joel and Roland were the same person. I know I've explained that to her before, but it's been quite some time. She probably forgot. Or she was confused and I only thought she understood.

She's now so bubbly and talking about how Joel gets a family! "Joel's getting 'dopted!" Poor thing was truly worried about him!

Well I'm thirteen days behind on adoption paperwork. It's midnight right now, but I'm rolling up my sleeves and diving back in. Let's get that kid 'dopted!