People Who "Get it"

Last night we went over to Kari’s again. Yeah, I know, it’s becoming a habit. It was raining, which wasn’t part of the plan, but the 20 of us fit nicely in the house -- don’t let her tell you her house is too small. The kids did pretty well (other than Dominyk running straight out in front of a car when we crossed the street from the van to the house and then the kids running everywhere trying to find each other when it was time to leave.

We got to meet Linda and her husband and three of her kids. There were some chaotic moments, and some hilarious moments. Maybe I”ll have time to blog some pictures later.

Kari’s parents who adopted four children back in the late seventies, early eighties, were there as well.


Highlights included Linda’s youngest son, who loves Christmas, marching around with a surgical glove (for his handbell ringing purposes), bells, and a small Christmas tree he had found in Kari’s basement singing, “Oh Christmas Tree” which morphed into the Star Spangled Banner. My battery on the camera was uncharged by this point, so we didn’t get a picture of this performance or of Dominyk’s face as he was trying to make sense of the whole thing. A very literal thinker, he just kept repeating to him and saying, “But it’s NOT Christmas!”

The kind of friends we have has changed over the years. When we got married 10 years ago, almost all of our good friends were people from our past or people who we worked with. As single people, we had lots and lots of great friends. But as we started to adopt children, most of those people just sort of faded into the background.

Not surprisingly, now almost all of the people I consider to be close friends are adoptive parents. Now there are a few great people from my past who still hang in there with us, and we keep up with them by phone, email, and occasionally in person. Because of their association with us, they “get it.”

As we have journeyed down road, we have found ourselves almost exclusively spending time with people who “get it.” People who understand that any amount of TLC is not going to heal organic brain damage. People who know that you love and are committed to a kid no matter what they do to you. People who have felt the pain of having to let a child live outside your home in order to get the help they need. People who have sought the best services for their children for years, only to find them making minimal progress. People who have realized that early years of abuse and neglect make a profound impact on a child and that the anger and hurt takes years, decades, maybe a lifetime to disappear.

So last night we had fun with people who “get it.” We didn’t have to worry if another one of the other parents was going to be critical of our children or our parenting abilities. We didn’t have to be cautious about what we said, worrying if it was going to be misinterpreted. We didn’t have to wonder if the next day others who were there were going to have conversations about how if we would only do this, or only do that, our kids would be different.

And we could celebrate the joy of a ten year old boy who loves Christmas year round, and a four year old girl who unashamedly can dance around the living room only in her pullup, and teens and preteens (mine) who act half their chronological age. We can laugh when our 13 and 14 year old daughters aren’t “hungry enough” to have what is served. We can sit by and thoroughly enjoy our kids as they are, and the kids can be free to be themselves.

We all have our quirks, too, and we know we aren’t perfect as parents. But we can be accepted for who we are just as our children can.

And at the end of any day, I’d rather be with twenty people, crammed into an older home, in not the nicest neighborhood in town, eating sloppy joes and chips with people who get it, than in a million dollar home in the best area of our city, having caviar and cornish game hens with anyone else.