Processing adoption!
Processing adoption has been a huge focus at our house lately! Not paper processing....emotional cognitive processing of adoption. It is amazing! Amazingly hard, amazingly beautiful, amazingly confusing, amazingly enlightening, amazingly hurtful, amazingly joyful, amazingly bonding, amazingly tearful, amazingly exhausting and amazingly energizing. And amazingly much more than that!!!! :)
I was never one that could talk about my feelings very well. This is not a good weakness to have when you are an adoptive parent! It is ESSENTIAL that I talk about feelings and help my kid process through the difficult parts of their life stories. Thank goodness for a village of other adoptive parents, social workers and counselors and even teachers who have come alongside me to help me make sure I handle this delicate subject to the best of my ability!
Jaryse seems to do this quite easily, fluently, and with acceptance of the 'good' and the 'bad'. I am pretty sure he has taught me more than I've taught him! :) Ecrissa on the other hand, needs more assistance. Due to her language delays and overall developmental delays, Ecrissa has processed her story at a much different rate than Jaryse. She is just beginning to understand some of the hard parts of her story. Going through this current adoption, she has been able to learn about her own story in such a tangible way. I'm not gonna lie.....it's not always pretty. But, I want to share something beautiful today!
Ecrissa loves to draw. We use drawing a lot for just recreation, but also to allow her a different mode of communication, for learning, for talking and being able to understand deeper feelings. Today, Ecrissa drew this.
There are many cool things about this! So, one of the first is that Ecrissa struggles with reading and writing. In fact, she is not yet even a reader. She asked me for help in spelling a couple of words, but the rest was all on her own! I will translate "haiti and china, Ecrissa haiti Dahlia china, Ecrissa friend Dahlia. Dahlia Ecrissa yes."
So, I am sure you get it, but what Ecrissa told me was that she loves her new sister. That she and Dahlia will be friends and Haiti and China are now connected through Ecrissa and Dahlia! Ummmmm, momma heart melted ALL.OVER.THE.FLOOR!
This is a beautiful moment! They are not all beautiful. Sometimes there is beauty within the ugly. Sometimes, it's just downright ugly. But, for today, I am holding onto the beauty!
I was never one that could talk about my feelings very well. This is not a good weakness to have when you are an adoptive parent! It is ESSENTIAL that I talk about feelings and help my kid process through the difficult parts of their life stories. Thank goodness for a village of other adoptive parents, social workers and counselors and even teachers who have come alongside me to help me make sure I handle this delicate subject to the best of my ability!
Jaryse seems to do this quite easily, fluently, and with acceptance of the 'good' and the 'bad'. I am pretty sure he has taught me more than I've taught him! :) Ecrissa on the other hand, needs more assistance. Due to her language delays and overall developmental delays, Ecrissa has processed her story at a much different rate than Jaryse. She is just beginning to understand some of the hard parts of her story. Going through this current adoption, she has been able to learn about her own story in such a tangible way. I'm not gonna lie.....it's not always pretty. But, I want to share something beautiful today!
Ecrissa loves to draw. We use drawing a lot for just recreation, but also to allow her a different mode of communication, for learning, for talking and being able to understand deeper feelings. Today, Ecrissa drew this.
There are many cool things about this! So, one of the first is that Ecrissa struggles with reading and writing. In fact, she is not yet even a reader. She asked me for help in spelling a couple of words, but the rest was all on her own! I will translate "haiti and china, Ecrissa haiti Dahlia china, Ecrissa friend Dahlia. Dahlia Ecrissa yes."
So, I am sure you get it, but what Ecrissa told me was that she loves her new sister. That she and Dahlia will be friends and Haiti and China are now connected through Ecrissa and Dahlia! Ummmmm, momma heart melted ALL.OVER.THE.FLOOR!
This is a beautiful moment! They are not all beautiful. Sometimes there is beauty within the ugly. Sometimes, it's just downright ugly. But, for today, I am holding onto the beauty!
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