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Our big kids come to us with such histories …

My Turn: We Didn’t Need the Past—Or So I Thought - Newsweek My Turn - MSNBC.com

… This is true of Nicky. I find out more about his past every day. He had a Christmas tree in his foster family (I’m not sure which one). He has seen dolphins in person (where does one see dolphins in Urumqi?). One of his foster familes had a big Micky Mouse snow globe. He had his own cubby and his own clothes in the orphanage. Everynight he brushed his teeth, washed his face and cleaned his feet before getting into bed with the 5 other kids he sharing the room. He was allowed to set off fireworks in China (we have talked about the fact that he may not do so here.)

I feel like I know so much about his life before us, and yet so little. What I do know tells me it was a good life. I made him a DVD of all the photos we have of his life in China and when we had guests over the other day, he showed it off to them. One of our friends, a girl adopted from China about Nicky’s age, was very affected. She was adopted as an infant. She went to go and cuddle with her Mom during the show. Afterwards, she told her Mom that Nicky left behind people who loved him in China.

She is right.

Noelle has also been thinking about the fact that there was a life before Momma. She can’t verbalize it well, though. Those are hard feelings of loss and change with which to grapple.

Our little one’s come to us with a history, too, but it is so much harder to know them. It is odd, but I really regret that I know so little about Noelle’s life before she came. She was clearly well loved and I’d guess had very doting foster parents. But that’s it. I make that assessment based on the fact that she attached relatively easily and came to me chubby and healthy. The only pictures of her before she was put in my arms are the three taken for the adoption paperwork when she was about 4 months old. She had such a head of hair, even then.

The Little Miss is giving me heck about bed-time right now. Some is her age, some is her personality, and some is my being too soft.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 30th, 2006 at 8:08 pm and is filed under Noelle, Nicky, Adoption, My Valley Of Love and Delight. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.