Together Forever

Did you just say that?

Really, I don't know why these ignorant people seem to find me. Maybe it is because I am ultra sensitive to being watched in public? You see I come from a Ginormous family...12 kids, 2 parents, one marriage, all single births thank you very much! and we all got pretty used to being counted and talked about when went out as a family...and then I moved to California where the norm is to have 2.5 children, and I had 4 boys...now let me tell you, that gets certain people talking too. Oh and lots and lots of "Oh honey, are they all yours?" followed by many "God bless you's" to which I always answer "He DID!"

Anyway, Now we have our beautiful little adopted girl which really only adds fuel to the fire when we are out as a family or instantly makes David and I "the poor couple who could not conceive on their own so they had to go to China to get a child" when we have her alone. And seems to make me a magnet for very rude and obnoxious people to come chat with when its just Maya and me.

What I hear most often:

"Your daughter is beautiful, what is your husband?" (Umm, last time I checked he was a man!)

"If you already had four boys, what on earth made you decide to get another one?"

"How much did she cost?", "What did she set you back?", "I bet she cost you an arm and a leg!", and "What does it take to get something like that over here to the states?" (to which I answer, She did not cost me one penny, I paid for all the legal fees involved to bring her home, she's priceless, or just give them a blank stare and walk away)

"Why would you go and do that when you have kids of your own?"

And " Aren't you glad you signed up for a whole lifetime of that?" (said by a rude woman at the ballpark when my baby girl was throwing a fit because it was 100 plus degrees outside and she had sat through 2 games and did not want to be there anymore.)

Now I am so used to these questions and statements that they really do not phase me much anymore and I can quickly tell if I am going to need to get away from a person or if they are genuinely curious about adoption and not in a malicious way. Besides, most of the time you can redirect a question away from the personal stuff and unless the person is really DENSE, they get that they are being to personal.

But this last one got to me, there we were at our local craft store and after a very brief "Is she adopted?" conversasion with a lady in line--which went really well, she turned to me and said " It's just a shame that you did not get one with whiter skin, then she would look more like you." Okay, really did you just say that to me?

Number one, She is my daughter and we do not even see her skin color until people like you point it out to us, I really do not care what color her skin is, white, black, brown, purple, green, whatever. Number two, I can not believe you just said that in front of my 8 year old son...now I have to explain to him why you said that and he is "colorblind"! Third, I really, really hate that you feel it is a shame for my baby girl not to have whiter skin and that she will have to deal with people like you for the rest of her life!

Okay, sorry, ranting is over. I do want you all to know that I know that simply by adopting we opened ourselves up for each and every question and comment. I am not opposed to answering questions about Maya's adoption at all and even welcome them. I asked tons of questions before we adopted, and I am even drawn to families that I know have adopted. But when simple questions turn to small attacks on my daughter's ethnicity, or my mental state as to why I would choose to adopt when I have four perfectly good boys at home, the momma bear in me comes out!

That being said, I want to thank all of the people who simply say "She's beautiful!", "She's one lucky little girl" (No, I am the luckiest girl because I get to be her momma!), or simply smile and say nothing at all.

So here you have it, a not so brief lesson on what not to say to a family who has been BLESSED by adoption.