[aclee]

there is a certain amount of self focus. Many children think their life, is the way it is for everyone. When I would Nanny, some kids would come over for a play group, and would always think I was the Mom. They had no concept of a Mom not being the one at home, and had no idea why a Mom would be working. I know an adoptive family who has 4 children, all adopted at birth. Their oldest is 6.5 and they can't take her to the hospital when their friends have babies right now because in her mind, a hosptial is somewhere you go, see the baby and take it home. There were a lot of tantrums before they figured out what was going on, and she even started acting out every time they visited one of their friends because "they had her baby sister".

It IS hard. My neice is three and sometimes she will crawl into my lap and ask me explain again why Ty wasn't "a gron" (grown) in my belly like her and her sister a gron in their moms. I thought my sister would die the first time it happened. I don't mind. I tell her there are a lot of ways for a Mommy to become a Mommy and a Daddy to become a Daddy. Then we talk about different ways. One of the ways is the way her mommy became a mommy, and one of the ways is the way I became a mommy. I do also think that sometimes adoption is such a special thing that we make sure we educate them about, when they might not have been educated in the same way about other ways of building a family. Now I think she's focusing too much on the plane we took to go get Ty, and come home on. I think she thinks when people visit, and they take a plane, they are bringing a baby....it's all a growth process.