The Adventures of Adoption and Parenthood

As you are growing up, you ask questions and you hear a lot of "you'll understand once you are a mother." Yeah, whatever. You hear "wait until it's your own kid." Uh huh. You hear "the love of a mother can move mountains." If you say so. We have a lot of solitary experiences in our lives even as others are going through a similar experience: living through cancer, battling with inner demons, divorce and it's aftermath, physical pain. But one thing I have learned is that motherhood isn't one of those experiences. There are days when I am in the thick of mothering my children that I'm suddenly struck by the generations upon generations of women who come from far and wide who have done exactly what I am doing at that moment. There were women in eastern Russia hundreds of years ago who fought with the children to get them clean. There were women in Africa who argued with their children over what they will put in their mouths. There were...

Tonight was Family Movie Night. We chose Home because Prima wanted to see it in the theater, but we never made it. So we watched in the comfort of our family room. Spoiler Alert - at the end when the girl finds her mom, Prima was a full on disaster. I admit, I didn't see that coming. "She found her Mom, and I don't know mine." My poor baby was hysterical crying because she doesn't know who her birth mom is. I know I write about birth moms a lot, but guess what, in my household, they're paramount. Without birth moms making the ultimate sacrifice, there would be no children. So, my great big 6-year old girl who is gorgeous beyond belief, who hates to be told she is cute or pretty, who scored a 100% on her math test, a 100% on letter sounds, and a 56% on her letter formation (just like this mama), who loves karate because it leads her to kung fu, who can't get enough of wonton soup, who adores chocolate, is crying the most heart-rending tears imaginable o...