Past Due

Hello, two faithful readers and countless (hundreds? thousands?) unnamed others :) A bit of blogging humor there.

I meant to blog about our adoption experience but as it turns out having a toddler around can really put a cramp in your blogging style, especially when you're not a reliable blogger to begin with.

The wonderful news is that the bumps in the process smoothed out after a false start and we met our beautiful new 18 month old daughter in early September. It took 7 days for us to receive the required ICPC (Interstate Compact) approvals from both States. We returned home on September 11th.

So now it's my hope to share more about the experience of beginning life with a new little one when that new little one has a life and opinions of her own. And can't really communicate any of it to these new strangers who call themselves "Mom and Dad".

One initial realization that hit me is exactly how difficult toddler adoption is...not for parents (though it's a challenge) but for the child. This isn't a newly discovered fact. But it a newly realized "ah ha" moment for me. Some things you just can't fully understand until you are living it.

Here is this little person whose job as a budding 2 year old is to separate and individuate from her caregiver/s. Along come these people who are completely new to her and she is faced now with the gargantuan task of attaching to them and trusting that they will actually take care of her and meet her needs. Attaching means allowing someone to do things...lots of things for you. Only at this point in her development every fiber of her being is saying "ME DO IT!!!"

The challenge is in allowing her enough independence to be 19 months old but at the same time encouraging enough dependence that she learns to trust that Mommy and Daddy will be here to take care of her needs, that she can trust us, and hopefully that we're kinda fun along the way. :)

So here we go on an interesting tight rope walk of attaching/dependence and individuation/independence.

PS. For a great read on toddler adoption try the classic: Toddler Adoption The Weaver's Craft by Mary Hopkins Best It's a classic!