People ... just sayin'

Well ... here I am again.  I'm not to good at keeping this blog up am I?  Well,  I've got a lot going on and I forget to do this!!  

But I have to share this story with you.  

We go every year to the beach with my parents and they have some "friends" they've met in the many years they've been going.  Now the lady I'm going to tell you about is in this group of friends but obviously not a very close one. Okay here goes:

We go to a picnic at this particular place where they all gather to catch up on the years events for each other. We've been many times with this group, so I guess this is why this encounter took me by such shock! I just never know what to say when people say things to me (until after the fact) so anyway....

My husband was not with us on this particular trip he had to work and was coming down on the weekend,  so he wasn't with us at this at this picnic. My mother, my grandfather, my daughter and I are sitting there minding our own business catching up with friends,  and this lady, who is NOT new to this group, walks up.  Keep in mind my daughter is now 3 1/2 yrs old at the time this happened. This lady has seen her at least three times (once a yr for the last 3 yrs).  Okay,  so she walks up to me at the table while pointing her finger at my daughter who is eating her lunch beside her grandmother and her great grandfather,  and this lady says to me "Does she speak English?"   (Now we are a Caucasian family, but not albinos,  we've got a little Cherokee Indian in us, but my daughter is Hispanic/Caucasian) I look at this lady and I say "yes". 

***What I should have said "NOPE"***

She says "Well there's some Spanish in there somewhere,  where does it come from?"  I say "She's adopted and her birth father is Hispanic" 

***What I should have said is "The MILKMAN" And left it at that.  ***

I guess I'm just to honest and don't think to give people stupid answers when they clearly 

deserve them. 

I know so far this isn't too bad really,  but the fact that we've seen this woman for three years in a row, and I know she's seen all of us together including my husband and knows my family....well she should have known.  NOT that I mind telling anyone my daughter is adopted,  or telling her story,  but her last words really got to me ..... after a little further conversation with us..... nothing noteable I might add,  she turns to leave but before she does she says 

"Well speaking Spanish ought to 

come naturally to her."

Idiot woman.  

Fortunately my happy little girl was too busy chowing down on her SPAGHETTI that she didn't pay attention to this crazy woman!!  

Oh the crazy things people will say to  you:

Here's some doozies we've gotten:

"Will you tell her about her REAL mom?"

"REALLY...she knows she's adopted?"

"So .. you're NOT her mother and father."

I am sure there are more  I'll come back and post them as I remember them or get new ones! LOL

If you've adopted and have got some good ones people have said to you please tell us in a comment what they were!

I just wish people would think before they speak and how it will affect the people around them especially any children that may be around.

Wow! Someone said "IT"

You know it's going to happen,  yet you really don't know what to say when it does. Someone says to your adopted child "I wish you would have stayed with your other mommy and never came here." 

You kind of expect this kind of stuff on the playground at school,  but in your very own home,  by a child you love as your own?  Well it happened,  and I don't know if I handled correctly or not but I do know it broke my heart. 

 My daughter wasn't as affected by it as I was. 

The children I keep during the day are related to me,  and I love them very much, which is why I suppose this hurt me so bad. They were told to clean up my daughter's bedroom before lunch was to be served. They had all been in there playing all morning,  and I believe they had every toy in the floor.  Well one of the children was so upset that now they had to clean up the mess they all made,  she looked at my daughter and said "I wish you would have stayed with your other mommy and never came here."  When I heard those words my head started spinning, "What did you just say?" I asked the child.  Then she repeated to me what she had said. Shocked, I put my hands on her shoulders and asked her how she would feel if someone told her they didn't want her around?  Of course I know she didn't really mean it,  after all she was just thinking if my daughter weren't here she wouldn't have to clean her room.  Little does she know she still would have been cleaning up any mess in any room they had made it in even if we had never adopted our daughter! But anyway,  she knew she had messed up and told me it would hurt very bad if we told her she wasn't wanted around. I asked her would she like me to tell her "I wish you never would have been born into this family?"  She said no that would be very mean.  SO I reminded her that my daughter was born into this family also,  just in a different way than she was. I also firmly reminded her to never say that again, to my daughter or to anyone for that matter.

I guess this hit me so hard because it is one of my greatest fears,  that my daughter will one day feel like she is not part of this "family" because she isn't biologically attached to us. That we could send her back.  That we don't love her as much because she is adopted. That we too wish she would have stayed with her birth mommy. 

Of course this will never happen,  as she is our daughter in every sense of the word.  We love her more than we could ever explain.  She is the light of our lives. She will always be our precious baby.

I just hope that she will understand this and be able to let things like this go without paying much attention to them. Like she did this time....I asked her did she hear what the other child had said?  and she says to me "Yes mommy, she was talking about my other mommy,  and that's okay mommy, I don't mind." So thank goodness she didn't really understand what the other child had said.

Checking In:

Okay time to make this blog what I meant for it to be in the first place!  A place to come and read about our adoption experience and experiences we have raising our adopted daughter!  I've added two tabs up top for you. One is about Open Adoption,  one is about Questions you might expect from your agency or home study agency. More tabs to come with different topics soon! 

Please note these are OUR experiences and you may or may not have similar experiences. If you are just starting out with the adoption process I hope this blog can be a place where you can come and read about some things that may be worrying you,  and hopefully put your mind at ease. I will periodically post about our own adopted daughter.(That's mostly what I've posted about in the past), however I really want to help couples who are considering adoption or are in the process see what they might can expect in the process.  Please feel free to email me questions about adoption experiences that you want to share or have questions about. I will answer them if I can,  or try to help you find an answer.  I do not know everything about adoption,  but I know how we felt during the process,  and would like to help ease your mind if I can!

I have also added two Face Book pages that I believe you should "like" and follow.  They have really good posts on adoption and you can see that you are not alone! You can find them in the right hand sidebar,  if you click the "LIKE" button it will take you to the actual face book page.

I have lots of plans for this blog,  so stay tuned for more,  and share us with your friends & family! Please use the tweet, and share buttons to help people find us! 

~ Becky