Upon telling a woman I had five children, she gasped and retorted with disgust, "why?!"
I am not sure how a family of seven qualifies us for the circus sideshow, I wasn't even sure our family was truly "large". I mean it's not as if we have our own reality TV show. Still the raised eyebrows and forced smiles suggest we are (ahem), different. Maybe it's the combination of size and multiracial adoption that gets the reactions. Honestly I don't know why people care so much about the size or DNA makeup of my family. In addition to the barely masked judgment, these days I'm just as often praised as some sort of Super Mom or Adoption Do-gooder. Mostly though people just scoff at the "insanity" of it all while the rest avoid us all together. For me though it's just life, my life to be specific, and I think it's just fine.
In addition to the bizarre fascination with the size and appearance of my family, since Macy joined us I have a new found appreciation for "the stupid things people say about adoption". Come on you tactless dolts do you hear yourselves saying this crap? Really you're asking if my four year old daughter home for a day from China speaks Chinese? Did you think French?? While we are at it; Yes (duh) I will tell her she was adopted. No (ick), I won't tell you how much she "cost". I swear (groan) the boys are not traumatized by our adoptions or harboring untold resentment towards the girls. And no (sigh) I am not "just like Angelina Jolie", (although we do look exactly alike). Jeepers I would NEVER ask these kind of personal questions to a biological family or anyone for that matter. A little decorum please...at least in front of my children.
The one question I get most of all is ironically the one that bugs me the most. It is the "are they all yours?" question and the thousand variants on the same theme. It is odd to watch the change in peoples faces as they learn the boys were not adopted. They sort of move from pitying me (oh poor thing can't have her own baby) to treating me like Mother Teresa (how nice for her to save those wretched orphans). I have even heard people say things like "at least you have some of you own". The title of this blog is sort of my public answer to that most loathe question. FIVE OF MY OWN because they are all my children, none more or less than the other.
But I digress, today I bid farewell to Treasures of the Silk Road, which has been at times retooled as Christmas In Kazakhstan and Boys and Curls and TOTSR, China Edition. The adoption journey across the silk road has ended and our family is complete...for now, (girl's gotta keep her options open). It is time to start fresh and focus on parenting this hodgepodge brood of mine. I think I can have more fun this time too since I'm no longer concerned that Big Brother in Kazakhstan or the CCAA in China is "watching". (Besides that on the old blog I'm getting weird comments from people asking me for money to claim an inheritance.) Don't be distraught though all of my old posts (and your old comments) are here if you need to take a trip down memory lane and hopefully there will be plenty of new things to write about. Which I suppose with this freakishly large family of mine won't be too hard to do.
PS: don't forget to hit the "Follow Me" button again---it's the one thing I couldn't copy over.
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| The original blog banner. Charlotte Lisa became Macy Lisabel and Delila Bea is of course Nina Bea. It seems funny now to think of them as anything but Macy and Nina. |
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| Taking the whole family to Kazakhstan was the best desicion of my life...especially since we all survived! |
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| The tag line on this header is still a favorite. In a way we each have had to adopt one another whether related by blood or decree we had to make the choice to love one another. |
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| The final Treasures of the Silk Road banner. It took us 4 years to add the China Edition and in that time I learned I had more patience and tenacity than I thought and that http://www.treasuresofthesilkroad.blogspot.com/ was way to long. |
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