An Adoption Story...present day

So often you hear of people's reaction to a child being adopted and it's negative....well, maybe not negative, but not exactly overwhelmingly positive. Yes, I've had the "how much did they cost?" questions and others but never have I had someone be super glad to hear that my kids were adopted!

Since Rico started Kindergarten, his best friend has been Gabe. I hear "Gabe this and Gabe that" all the time. We've often seen Gabe and his family at school functions but never had Gabe over for a play date. Well, with school coming to an end, Rico really wanted Gabe to come over. So a couple of times, when Ralph picked up the kids he mentioned it to Gabe's mom. Then he gave her his card and ask that she call me to arrange a play date.

We hadn't heard from her, not sure why, but I didn't want to let the ball drop because Rico really, really wanted to have Gabe come over. (Ralph has been picking up the kids most days because my hip has been very painful. If I have to pick up the kids, I have to walk a ways to the gate and I can't take a pain pill and most afternoons, by pick up time, my hip is so bad I have to take something.)

Anyway, Gabe's mom finally allowed Gabe to come over last Friday, after school. It was a shortened day and so Gabe came over, had lunch and played for about an hour and a half. When she came to get Gabe, I asked her in and she came in just for a couple of minutes. I wanted her to see our house, know that we are "normal" folks and feel comfortable letting Gabe come over again.

She told me that she knew that she was being overprotective of Gabe, but that's just how she was, she couldn't help it. I told her I understood, it's hard when your "baby" is going out to friend's homes. Then she asked me in a very nice way about Marielle's hair and which side of the family she got that from. I laughed and said that both Marielle and Rico were adopted and that they are Guatemalan.

The response I got, was by far, the best response I've ever received upon telling someone that my children were adopted. She hugged me and said, "Oh, I feel so much better now. Gabe can come over anytime! I know what kind of background check you have to go through to adopt, you must be good people."

She then explained that she and her husband are foster parents, they don't currently have any kids but they obviously know about fostering and adopting (they'd love to adopt through fost/adopt) and we bonded pretty quickly.

I must say, though, that I was really happily bowled over by such a great response to my statement that my kids were adopted.