We are FAM-I-LY

(The title of this post is meant to be sung - sorry if it's stuck in your head now)

Tonight when I was putting Ella to bed I read her the book "Tell Me Again About the Night I was Born." If you are not familiar with it, it is a really sweet book about a little girl's adoption story. I have been trying more and more to tell Ella the story of her birth. She doesn't really understand it at all but she likes to hear it. My hope is that when she is old enough to understand what adoption is, she will be so familiar with the terminology and the miracle of her birth that it will not be surprising to her and that we will be able to avoid (or more easily work through) some of the heartache that go along with adoption.

Anyway . . . and now we are finally getting to the point of my post . . . while I was reading the book, Spencer came in the room and listened the story. As I read I interjected parts of her birth story and part of Spencer's birth story. Spencer asked me if tomorrow I could tell him the story of his birth. I realized in that moment that he was feeling a little bit left out hearing Ella's story over and over.

I tried to explain my rationale behind getting Ella very familiar with her birth story. I tried to explain some of the stigma surrounding adoption. I told Spencer that some adopted children feel like they weren't wanted or weren't loved. Spencer's eyes immediately welled up with tears. He said "But mom, that's not true. Her birth family loved her so much. They loved her enough to do what was right for her. And we love her so much. She's my sister, she shouldn't ever feel that way"

I wish I could have captured that moment and the raw emotion on his face. Lately, my kids have been fighting non stop. They compete over any and everything. The last couple of weeks have been really tough over here. But when it comes down to it, he's in his sister's corner and it was nice to see.

Now, any ideas on how to have more of those moments and less of the screaming ones?