Our daughters are adopted. A few months after they came to live with us, we went over the Sangre de Cristo's to the Great Sand Dunes National Park, and stayed in a motel there. They tumbled into the room, jumping on the beds, excited that they had a new home, convinced they were going to live there. Youngest had been in three homes by then, the Eldest in five. They thought that's how life was lived, that you changed homes every few months.
Spiderman was on television that night. They were convinced for years afterward that Spiderman played on all motel television sets, every night.
13 comments:
How sweet is that? I remember taking my granddaughter to a motel so we could take her swimming. I ordered room service and told her I was cooking dinner. When they brought it...she was convinced I had somehow made it and she declared that I was the best cook ever! HA!
Kids!!!
Hugs
SueAnn
I love the way that kids look at things. It can be both incredibly cute and darkly terrible at the same time.
Spiderman does play on all motel televisions every night.
Thank you for sharing such beautiful things as these.
Well i believe it!
I love this little glimpse inside your family life. I'm so glad these sweeties came home to you.
Sweet, SueAnn, though it was a little disturbing at the time. No clear definition of the word home.
Actually, Gordo, there does seem to be some weird synchronicity where Spiderman is on TV whenever we're on vacation. 3 times now. Maybe it's just on TV alot.
Thanks, Shayna. As I said to SueAnn, it made me a little sad at the time. They didn't really grasp the concept of home. Or Daddy, either.
meno, glad you believe.
Ah Hil, thanks. I'm glad they found a home in us as well. Easily the most important thing I've ever done.
It's a good thing kids are so flexible when young.
I agree totally with Gordo's comment - so powerfully sad yet so powerfully hopeful and happy, all at once, all rolled into a bittersweet lump in my throat.
yes, art, there is a resiliency there that I think fades over time. it's as if we grow more brittle, less open to change. we harden.
Beautifully put, anon, and describes well how I felt at the time. it was simultaneously heartbreaking and life-affirming.
I don't know that all children are all that resilient...
I suppose the relationship between resilience and age is partly a matter of personality.
I feel *more* resilient the older I get, because I don't feel so absolutely clueless, the way I did when I was a child.
I had a relatively happy, stable childhood, but I remember childhood's terrors---I never knew anything, from day to day--all of existence was unstable. Every new person was a new universe. It was like being an astronaut in an alien culture. I was very aware I didn't KNOW a lot of stuff, didn't understand a lot of concepts, and wanted to.
I couldn't wait to be grown up, and once I was, I never stopped being grateful not to be a child.
But there are surely many people who were far better at being a child than I was. May your girls be among them.
I really like the way you write, Clowncar - with certain simplicity, like someone who talks slowly because they know people will listen.
Interesting, Fresca. There's a character in Hotel New Hampshire who is an awful child, a wonderful adult (I'm a big John Irving fan). Certainly, our children aren't fully resilient either, with varying amount of baggage from their difficult and chaotic early years. Eldest sometimes has a cloud of melancholia about her that I fear will engulf her in adolescence. Perhaps I'm merely projecting. I hope so. Regardless, I'm happy to hear you are so comfortable in adulthood. Lotsa people aren't so lucky.
Thank you, Margaret. I'm not a vain man, I don't think, but compliments to my writing style make my day. I actually started blogging partly out of wanting to strip back my writing style into something leaner and cleaner. Having kids helps. Short and simple.
Awe!!! How sweet and bittersweet... and how wonderful that they are now with you in a real home with a real family and more love than they ever could have imagined.
You and your wife are my new heroes of the day today. Blessings on you all, tenfold.
Scarlett & Viaggiatore
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