August 09, 2009

Somehow I Doubt This One Will Catch On

This one is for those of you collecting data points of what kids call their birth/first/natural/bio parents in open adoptions.

Todd was giving Puppy the run down of the next few weeks at our house. We've got a long visit this week from a bunch of Todd's family (blurgh) and then several days with Ray, Puppy's birth dad (yay).

"I'm excited that Ray is coming to stay with us," Todd said to Puppy.

Puppy considered the news, then gave a little nod. "Ray is my old dad," he announced.

Todd said, "Sure, why not?" and--his mind perhaps automatically jumping back to when Ray made him the new dad--told Puppy a little "I remember when" story of the night Puppy was born. He got to the part where everyone is passing baby Puppy around like a slow, snuggly game of hot potato. And Puppy laughed and laughed.

8 comments:

luna said...

no matter how much care we take to consider this, ultimately it is their decision.

Heather said...

@luna - Exactly. Little kids work so much out through their storytelling and language--I think we adults get in the way sometimes by narrowly defining what language is "acceptable."

Ginger said...

That is so cute...

Thanksgivingmom said...

Haha, I think that's adorable :)

Though admittedly I don't think I'd be looking forward to the day Cupcake calls me her "old Mom" - but I'd take it in an instant!

Jess said...

LOL...I don't think Rachel would take too kindly to being the "old" mom since she is, in fact, older than I! :D

We're just starting on working on what adoption IS and also, in the same vein for our kids' age, where it is that babies come from (ie...you and your bio brother shared a tummy, babies grow in tummies, babies come to families different ways.). WELL...my daughter now tells me that she was "adopdop" and that her brother "came from a dish." (He was IVF.)

Additionally, Adopdop Babies AND Dish Babies are "AWESHOM!"

I started the ivf/dish talk so that she wasn't alone with her "special" story. We're just at the basics and already I'm getting looks from family and friends that think I'm cracked for telling them this!

Oy, it's going to be a long year for her kindergarten teacher when the time comes, I have a feeling!

Jacksmom said...

I love this post. And Jess, I love how you're explaining the IVF as well so that they both have special stories. This one hits home for me as our bio-son was an IVF baby and our next will be "adopdop". Heather-Maybe as time goes on he will refer to Ray with a different title???

Heather said...

@Jacksmom - He uses all sort of different titles. Mostly birth dad, but at times he's referred to him as his daddy or his first dad. (He's a multi-titler in general. Todd is Dad, Daddy, Dada and Dodo, for example.) He only calls him Ray when he's with him. It's actually pretty interesting to see the different ways he's working out who Ray is to him.

mayhem said...

Sparkle called his first parents "step parents" for a while. Beloved was his "real dad" and his father in South Africa was his "step dad." We didn't correct him-- I think it's interesting to hear how he's processing and thinking about those relationships. I think that to him step parents are sort of a sub-set of parents, important but secondary. He hasn't said this for a while now. Maybe he understands more what other people mean when they talk about step parents? I'll have to ask him...

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