Wo Ai Ni Mommy

I found an interesting video trailer on this blog . It is a trailer for a documentary about an 8 year old girl who was adopted from China entitled Wo Ai Ni Mommy (I Love You Mommy) and it describes the families' experiences, the struggles and the joy that may be involved in an older child adoption. Just the trailer was very emotional and I have my own reasons for watching it but cannot wait for the show to air! Go here and click on "Enter Site" to view the trailer!!

There is a portion of the trailer where this beautiful little girl is crying and asking to go back to China, to all that was familiar to her. This broke my heart and led my thoughts to Lizzie and her process of attachment. Wanting to go back to China (without us) is one thing that I can say we have never seen in Lizzie. Even in China, during our orphanage visit, Lizzie's reaction to the nannies was heart wrenching. She clearly did NOT want to go to them, any of them. This very difficult visit and my feelings about her care in China and the effect it had on my sweet girl is a post for another day. Suffice it to say that it was an extrememly emotional day, good and bad!



We still see, after being home for a year and a half, signs that she worries about leaving us. When she gets in trouble, she often apologizes profusely for her actions and somehow it is different. Her apologies sometimes have a desperateness about them that just brings me to my knees. She also gets VERY worried and scared when I get hurt and I don't mean seriously injured like 911 worthy but "oops I need a bandaid" type boo boo! It can bring my sweet girl to the verge of tears - me too!! I guess whether a child longs for what was their "familiar" or is fearful about loosing what has become their new "familiar," each reaction can be challenging and heartbreaking for both the child and the family. I can say from my own experience that this is one of many things that I pray about, worry about and over analyze about with Lizzie. However, I pray about and worry about and over analyze about other things with our biological children too (like why Em loves Batman underwear and why my sons think that just saying the words fart, burp and poop is the funniest thing ever, Hehe). So I guess in the end, every single child has fears, adopted or not as does every single parent, but yet I still search for answers and reason and solutions where there may be none. I do so, however, because I am Mom. I am Christian, Charlie, Caleb, Em and Lizzie's Mom and I love them all and worry about them all and enjoy them all tremendously. They will all have their own set of challenges (one of which being their crazy parents) but so do we all and we pray about them, worry about them and over analyze them and then move on!! We all have obstacles to overcome (I watched my amazing brother overcome many) and learning all we can about dealing with them helps us to ultimately overcome them and live!!! The best thing I ever did to overcome some of my many challenges (because there are many) was to marry a guy who definitely does not worry too much or over analyzes ANYTHING! It drives me absolutely crazy sometimes, but does keep me grounded!!