I just found them...

We have officially experienced our first "kids say stupid/hurtful things" related to our family.

Two days ago Brownie came to my desk at school and said, "Momma, Shannon told Rose and everyone else that you are not Potato's and my REAL Momma.  You just found us.  She said they can tell that you're not our REAL Momma because we're Chinese." (Let me interrupt this story to be clear that the child telling me this tale is Brownie, one of our bio kids.  Apparently she has REALLY assimilated into the culture Here so that her fellow 1st Graders look at her and see her as a Chinese kid.)

I smiled widely, and said, "Now that is silly, isn't it?  Not your REAL Momma?  So then she thinks I'm your FAKE Momma?"

We had only a moment between classes so she sort of crinkled up her nose and gave me a half-hearted smile...and then she went on.

That night, at dinner, she began to tell the story to Daddy.  This time her "twin" Potato, who has been home for five years now, and is in the same 1st Grade class, helped the story along.  Telling us that many of the kids in class were passing around this "fact" that I was not their REAL Momma.  That I FOUND them.

I was a little anxious, wanting to handle this potentially sensitive discourse with some wisdom.

I repeated my, "Isn't that silly? So they think that I'm your fake Momma...and I just found you?"

Potato pipes up with an authoritative, passionate summation of her thoughts on the matter...

"That is SO silly!  GOD found each of us and brought us to our family!"

We recently have been talking about the fact that He has a plan for all of our lives.  That the journey of our lives, the being a "family" was always THE PLAN, He used many different people and circumstances to fulfill His plan for each of our lives.  She was born to be our daughter,  just as those to whom I gave birth.  His plan was for her to come to HER family via adoption, also several of her brothers the same, other siblings came via birth.  But God is the author of all of it..".He found EACH of us and brought us to our family.:"

We pray for everyday for a deeply grounded sense of identity and belonging, for each of us, to our family.  We were so encouraged by the fact that for now, she has that sense of identity firmly in place.