This is a letter that Hope wrote. It says:
Dear Ava,
I love you so much and I am glad that you're not an orphan anymore and that you are my sister and I want you to come to my birthday party and all my friends can come and watch me do ballet.
Now that I told you that story, I can tell you this story:
I had read that it is very common for children to want to send their new sibling "back home" shortly after an adoption. In 2 1/2 months of being home with Ava we hadn't heard anything even remotely close to that.
That is, until last week.
Hope goes to preschool once a week, on Thursdays. I think I have mentioned in a previous post Hope's love for dresses (as well as her unawareness of the term lady-like). After several embarrassing public moments, I have started making her wear pants every time we go out. She is not happy about it.
After so much lamentation last Thursday morning, I finally had Ava and Hope (wearing pants) buckled in their car seats and on our way to school when Hope said, "Ava, I don't like you anymore. I want you to go back to the orphanage".
Dumbfounded, I pulled the car over. Knowing she had never demonstrated any ill feelings toward Ava, I knew something else was going on. I got her out of her seatbelt, sat her on my lap and said, "Hope, do you know what I think? I don't think you are mad at Ava at all. I think you're mad at ME because I wouldn't let you wear a dress today."
She started crying and admitted, yes, that is why she said what she said. Through tears she apologized to Ava, and I made her apologize to me too. Before we got to school, the girls were holding hands in the back seat again. Like always.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Posted by liesel at 9:59 PM
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8 comments:
You handled that well. :)
Learning to weather storms at a young age. I'm glad you walked with her through it.
perceptive of you. I'd have cried, for sure.
Well handled and indeed very perceptive that you realized what the matter truly was. My daughter wanted only to wear dresses as well at that age, and because of the same concerns you have, we compromised with her wearing shorts underneath her dresses. Modesty and femininity at the same time! :-) She is now 16 and *still* will only wear dresses (even backpacking!), but she no longer wears the shorts too. LOL
I used to wear shorts under my school uniform for those monkey bar moments.....
Lisa A
awwwww charissa you deserve the best mom in the world award! Not only are you great at blogging all this stuff you are a great example to all us moms! visiting this site blesses my socks off!
Hi Charissa! Sadie wears modesty shorts under all her dresses. If you go to Academy in the girls section they have these little bicycle short looking things for about $4. I think they are supposed to be for ballet. They are great though, they are fitted she won't even know she has them on.
Man...you really handled that good! I had two girl that needed to wear shorts under their dresses as well!
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