Saying of the Day: I NOT a doctor!

We haven't really spoken much to H about his adoption. Honestly, we've been rather busy with the rather mundane aspects of surviving life with a 2GO3 and trying keep him thriving and not so much whining (a lot lately).

We  haven't kept it a secret. It's just not a topic of main conversation. These days I've taken to calling him "H Buzz Wilson." For those of you who may not be familiar with the context, Buzz Lightyear and Wilson from Chuggington. At any given moment he will announce "Mom, I'm Buzz." So we have Big Buzz (me), Little Buzz, (H), and Baby Buzz (his three inch tall toy Buzz.) He has also announced he is Wilson and I'm Koko. We have decided Daddy is Dunbar - a very apt description as far as we are concerned.

One little side shot about Buzz. I picked H up from school two weeks ago to this pronouncement. "Jacob has a Big Buzz. We need to go to the Red store."
"Why do we need to go to the Red store?"
"I need a bigger Buzz."

Ah, a classic case of Buzz envy!

Daddy has pictures of H on his computer that cycle. These include pictures from our trip to Kaz all the way up to recent ones. H loves to watch them whenever he can and ask about them. We tell him about each one. "This is the day we became a family, this is the day we took you outside for the first time since you were 7 days old, this was the group of families we met at the orphanage." He knows we chose him and he is special. I have a picture frame with 25 spots that I intend (and still do) to hang in his room with pictures from our time at the orphanage. Somehow, it has gotten put on the back burner....imagine that.

I bought a book with the thought of introducing him to adoption as a more concrete concept but it didn't really seem to fit all that well. I haven't found another one that tells our story. I do intend to create a sort of book for him that has our story but unfortunately, that, too, hasn't found its way to the priority list. We also lost ALL of our pictures leading up to the first day we met him. Fortunately, Daddy took two with his phone so we have something from that day but the classics: here's our pile of stuff we are about to put into tiny suitcases, here's our trip itinerary, here we are at the airport with our TON of luggage (which were NOT overweight amazingly we never paid extra luggage fees) here we are in Frankfurt, Almaty, Karaganda, etc. All were wiped out - boo hiss.

Anyhow, we haven't been "forced" into discussion on this topic as H really looks a lot like Daddy. And funny enough, Saturday, the checkout lady at the Blue store asked if he was the grandson! HAHA! This is not a frequent occurrence but definitely not an unheard of assumption.

I have a cousin who adopted domestically at birth and has an open adoption. Therefore, adoption is simply all he has known and his everday life deals with it. I have another family member who adopted domestically but circumstances were less the ideal. I'm not sure if they have broached the subject much as he, too, looks similar to the family and well, he's still quite young.

Are we remiss, maybe, are we ignoring the subject? No. We do talk about being Kazakh, when we met him, how we chose him, our Family Day, and how he flew on planes a long long way to "come home."

I like to read other blogs about adoption. Sunday, I was reading about a family that had adopted from Kaz and China. H got up from his nap and came to sit in the bed with me.

"Mommy, who's that?"
"That's a little girl. She's adopted like you are."
"I NOT a doctor!"

I laughed too hard to go into a discourse about adoption and we went and had a snack instead.