[ranoutofnames]

I can understand. My A1 should be the poster child for ADHD. There were days where I felt so close to her and other days where I wanted to throw my hands in the air and walk (no run) away.

One thing we did (and maybe others wouldn't agree with how we handled it) is we (DH and I) never talked about her bios. We had the cw pick her up and return her to day care for visits. We never asked how they went, what was said, nothing. A couple of times she mentioned playing with her half sister and I'd tell her "that's nice, I'm glad you had fun", but then dropped it. She didn't talk anymore about it as if the whole thing never happened. To this day (she's 8) she doesn't remember them. I showed her a picture the other day and she didn't know who anyone in the picture was.

Our reason was because we were told from the beginning (she was placed with us at 9months) that if she went to adoption it would not be in her best interest to have contact with her bios... and once we met them and got to know them we couldn't have agreed more.

A1 stopped having visits with her bios around 4yrs old. We adopted her on her 5th birthday. She is now 8yrs old and has no recollection of her bios. She has faint memories of her half-sister but thinks she was just another foster child she used to play with.

My 4.5yr old daughter currently has an imaginary boyfriend she talks to everyone about. He sits by her at meals but is not allowed to sleep in her room. Last week they went to the park together and ate a whole bunch of cotton candy.

I guess my point is that from my experience (which everyone's is different) young children tend to incorporate their youngest childhood memories in weird ways and make-up stories to explain the hows and whys. As time goes by and once adoption is done, provided it's not an open adoption, the memory of the bio and other foster parent will fade... and then she'll be like my kids who want to go stay with Grandma because Grandma lets them do "this and that".