A New Type of Nickname

Growing up, my parents were always very honest with me.  I was an inquisitive child.  I asked a question, they gave me an answer.  They didn’t really dumb it down either.  Whether that was always intentional or related to the fact that they were teenagers raising a child who just HAD to know EVERYTHING.  All that to say I knew a lot about things kids my age had never heard of.

When raising our kids, Justin and I decided on a quite similar approach.  There have been times we have told them we are NOT giving them the full answer because they were not ready to process it all.  Add to that the fact we were a surrogate family which involved a lot of explanation to the kids about how the baby I was carrying was NOT our baby – which involved a lot of explanation about the difference in a baby mom and dad created vs IVF.  Needless-to-say, my kids know quite a bit about growing babies and understand clearly that mom and dad are incapable of growing their own.

Then adoption came up.  As we explained that we might bring home another brother.  Not a baby brother, but a brother their age, they understood.  They understood that for some reason another mom and dad couldn’t take care of their son so we would help for a while (foster) and if after some time, they still weren’t able he would join our family permanently (adopt).  We’ve been having these conversations with them for about a year.

That being said, for Christmas I got this awesome gift from my mother-in-law.  I’m not typically a jewelry gal, but this I love.

Jordan sat with me one day being an awesome cuddler, playing with the necklace and then this happened:

Jordan: Mommy, this isn’t a very good necklace.

Me: Why? I love it.

Jordan: It will make our new brother sad.

Me: It will?

Jordan: yeah, his name isn’t on here.  That’s not fair.

Me: Maybe I can get a new one or we can figure out how to add him.

Jordan: I know! We can just name him Taylor, Jordan, or Elijah!

Me: We don’t get to name him.

Jordan: We can just give him a new nick name.

Me: That’s not really how nick names work.

Jordan: No, it’s OK.  It’s a great idea.

My kids are ready for a brother.  Justin and I are ready for a son.  Let’s hope our adoption agency actually gets back to us AND when they do it is good news (that we qualify).