You Know You're An Adoptive Parent IF...

I just saw this on another blog and it rings so true for us.

You Know You're An Adoptive Parent IF...
1. The fact that there are 143 million children without a parent to kiss them goodnight has made you lose sleep.
2. You realize DNA has nothing to do with love & family.
3. You can't watch Adoption Stories on TLC without tears.
4. The fact that, if 7% of Christians adopted 1 child there would be no orphans in the world, is convicting to you.
5. You spend free time surfing blogs about families who've experienced the blessing of adoption.
6. It drives you crazy when people ask you about adopted child's "real" parents.
7. You were "pregnant" with your adoptive children longer than it takes an elephant to give birth (2 years!)
8. You'd no idea how you'd afford to adopt, but stepped out in faith anyway, knowing He'd provide (He did!)
9. You've taken an airplane half-way around the world to meet your child
10. You believe God's heart is for adoption.
11. You realize that welcoming a child into your heart & family is one of the most important legacies you could ever leave on this earth.
12. You know what the word "Dossier" means & you can actually pronounce it correctly!
13. You've welcomed a social worker into the most private parts of your life.
14. You shudder when people say your child's so lucky that you adopted them, knowing full well you're the blessed one to have him or her in your life.

*Borrowed from http://theboysadoption.blogspot.com/ (2/14/08)

Is Yours the Black Kid?

It's always funny seeing people trying to be PC about our transracial family. It's like everyone is scared to say the word "black" or describe him in those terms. I am constantly chuckling to myself when people will say, "is that your son over there, with the blue shirt, and jeans?" or "is your son the one with dreadlocks?". Particularly because in most scenarios here in vanilla OC, he is the one-and-only black child in a 20-mile radius. So why does it seems so weird just to cut to the chase and say, "the black one. Mine is the black kid".

And yet . . . wouldn't that make you kinda cringe to hear? But why? Why would I need to dance around a descriptive term that we all understand? Why does it seem crude to describe him in terms of his race, which is the most obvious feature, when everyone else feels fine to describe their children by other obvious features (the redhead, the blonde, the one with two pigtails).

Anyways, yesterday there was a new mom at our playgroup, and for the first time since we adopted him, someone just asked the obvious. She looked at the kids and turned to me and said, "is yours the black kid?". And after a little nervous chuckle, and amidst the stares of several mortified moms, I said, "yes, mine's the black kid". And in my mind I was thankful for this one person who felt that Jafta's being black was just a simple question, and nothing more.