Adoption Tearoom - open for business

[MediumPretty]

or maybe a place for me to talk to myself . Not as glamorous as the One Child Families tearoom, just somewhere to have a cyber cuppa and chat.

I went to pick DD (adopted from China) up from school yesterday. Whilst waiting in the playground I got chatting to the grandma of one of her classmates. I find playground chitchat hard work sometimes and I made a lighthearted remark about life since we adopted DD. The perfectly nice Grandma said "it's hard bringing up a child who isn't your own". She said that 30 odd years ago she had fostered two boys for what should have been a few weeks but they stayed with her until adulthood - one was still living at home.

I told her that we think of DD as "our own".

Silence followed then (as the bloody school bell still hadn't gone), I said something inane about enjoying having a daughter and Grandma said "I feel closer to my daughter, than my two sons who are not mine".

She didn't mean any harm with her remarks but it was an insight into how some people view adopted children as somehow less than a birth child and I felt a bit deflated

Just wanted to offload - will nip to M&S for some scones in case any one pops into the tearoom.

Evening all :)

If we're doing a bit of bragging
DD1: Is a beautiful, empathetic and loving. She's also the strongest, most resilient person I have ever met in my life, and she is very trustworthy
DD2: Very loving, funny, and whilst she can be very oppositional sometimes, other times she tries hard to please. She is talented with her arts and craft work, and she's particularly good at knitting! She is also very pretty, and gets her fair share of attention from the boys (although actually that's not something I wanted to happen )
DS: Likes telling jokes, is doing very well in school now he feels much more secure, is a fast runner, and great at climbing trees (he saw some abseilers last week and wants to do that now!). He has got 'star of the week' in assembly twice now! He can spend hours entertaining himself, and has a really good imagination

DS has an actors soul. He is outwardly confident and sociable and loves clowning around and telling terrible jokes but has a streak of insecurity a mile wide. He is good looking but more than that he has a sparkle and joie de vivre which I find energising (mostly!) and humbling given (as Hester said) everything he has weathered already in his short life.

I rarely worry about him being bullied as with Hesters DD2 his first instinct if anyone crosses him is to clock them across the head/arm/leg with the closest thing to hand , we have worked on that and he at least confines it half heartedly to me at the moment!

I cant hold back any longer.

DS is very beautiful. He has striking features particular to his part of OH's family (I suspect a chromosonal thing but thats another thread). Despite his ASD lable he is very caring and sweet. He looks after the children in his class and helps at meal times.

He can draw very very well. He only draws Dr Who (well mostly) but he gets every detail right.

He is loved by everyone because of his sweet nature and wide eyed ways. We get all the challenging stuff but thats life hey?

Taking him to a Dr Who exhibition is a joy I wish everyone could experience. Its exhausting but utterly hilarious and he makes even the most serious Dr Who fan smile.

He is SO resilant and has suffered such a lot of loss in his little life. He loves to talk about his sister (my DD) and that is such a comfort to me. He does sometimes pick odd moments and shocks the hell out of people in Tescos as he merrily chats about his sister who lives in heaven and went for a drive in a pink car.

I love him so much. My boy.

Our kids are pretty fab arnt they?

They are indeed :)

I love hearing about your lovely children. Wish I could see them - but I'm guessing none of us have their photos on our profiles!

Oh I'm shameless(and due to country differences no worries about birth family) no doubt unwise - but really I don;t care!

More naffo baby-plugging here: dd2, walking along the street, staring at tree very intently. Suddenly starts pulling leaves off a bush, then tries to stick them onto a lamppost. I suddenly realise what she's up to. "dd", I say, "Are you building a tree?" "Yuss!" she says.

I tell you, the child will go far.

Ds said to me last week (very seriously) "Do you know Mum why I don't go to sleep at bedtime?" No why would that be DS "well you see it isn't bedtime in Kazakhstan"

Very clver and cunning but sadly they are about 5 hours ahead of us so I explained that he would need to go to bed at about 2.30 in the afternoon.

Crestfallen but I had to admire his thought process.

He sounds so great, kew.

hester - d'you think you could lead me gently away from teh letting the tyres down thread before I get all hoity toity?

DON'T GO BACK THERE. I've banned myself because I could feel a bit of a red mist rising, and I'm trying to take care of my blood pressure.

Just step away and breathe.

Kew just did a really great post, but I'm still not letting her stay there. it's not good for her blood pressure.

I've got to admire your son's way of thinking, Kew, puts me in mind of DD's friend O aged 5-going-on-25. DD was asking DH for another Wii game and he said "not yet, you haven't played much with Just Dance". Stage whisper to DD from O "play with the Just Dance game and then you'll get the new game"

Today the tearoom is providing sanctuary from Father's Day. When I am Ruler of the World I'm going to ban Mother's Day too. I accept that I'm biased because I lost my mother very young and Dad has been gone for a long time too. And of course, as an adoptive mum, I know that my daughter and her birth mother have undergone a tremendous loss in order for me to enjoy the privilege of being her mummy.

For so many children and parents these two days must be such a cause of sadness of pain

Oh, I'm rambling - cup of coffee.tea anyone? Crossaints, pain au chocolat?

*sadness and pain. Am off to petition MNHQ for an edit button - be back later!

I agree, MediumPretty. I am particularly aware that dd1 has an involved dad she can send cards to, while dd2 has none . I am going to have to think very carefully about how we handle Fathers Day in this house. For now, I am just ignoring it - let school handle it - but it will become an increasingly sensitive subject as dd2 grows up.

Our children have to go through some shit, don't they

However, am now off to a lovely brunch, so will pass on the pain au chocolat for now. Save me some for later

we pretty much ignore fathers day here too for the same reason as Hester. Sadly useless git of a father myself so not even a grandfather (worthy of th ename) to substitute. DS does a fathers day card for my brother in school and at teh moment that does nicely although I didn't see one come home so lord only knows what he's done with it.

Luckily we have a freinds birthdya party today so the focus very much on eating too much cakerather than missing fathers

Hester - DS asks me why he doesn't have a Daddy occasionally and I have some strategies for dealing with it - perhaps we can discuss when we met up.

DD's school doesn't do anything for Mother or Father's Day, thankfully.

Not a good day here either - DS school made a big production of cards yesterday, so DS felt left put, although he made a card for his uncle :(

I don't like either day. Nothing much to do on fathers day, and mothers day is either a load of angsty DD2, and nothing fun for me, because there is no father to organise anything!

I'm not going to ask about what this horrible thread you're all staying away from says, but which board would I find it on, if I decided to be nosy??

Lilka to be fair it wasn't a horrible thread just an annoying response which I took exception to. Have a look on my profile for what threads I've posted on recently and you'll find it

Ds said to me today 'mum what do mummies do and what do daddies do'
Well pretty much mummies and daddies can do the same things.
'Oh I thought mummies did the important things and daddies did the other stuff'

Kew, we have a lot to discuss! Slightly drowning here, but things will be a lot clearer in a couple of weeks. I'll PM you with some dates this week x

hi all, Sorry not posted since my inital entry!

I'm wondering if my feelings are irrational sometimes: I get really really irritated about people talking as if blood and dna are all it takes to be a parent/child/member of a family. Why do people always revert back to 'well so and so isn't biologically their's'.

Loving reading all the bragging posts . Love hearing about children's successes, always guarantees a smile.