In addition to National Adoption Awareness Month, November is also National Novel Writing Month. For the past several years, many in the blogosphere have been participating in an event called NaNoWriMo (taken from the first few letters of each of the words in National Novel Writing Month). NaNoWriMo also has a Young Writers Program, and this year, my oldest son is (voluntarily!) participating as part of a homeschooling project.

What does this have to do with adoption? It turns out, (surprise, surprise!) that my son is writing a story about an owl who finds out his parents are adopting two siblings! Hmmm, let’s see…my son’s parents adopted two children, also! The father in the story likes fettucini alfredo, and guess, what? My husband likes fettucini alfredo as well! In the story, the owl family has to move in order to make room for the new additions. As you might have already guessed, our family moved in anticipation of the adoption, too. Not that this story is semi-autobiographical or anything (ha ha!), but it’s definitely been interesting to see the story unfold, and get insights into how he views our adoption journey!

My oldest son has been positive about the adoption from the moment we told him of our intention. Yes, moving was extremely difficult for him emotionally, but he knew it was part of the process, and he wanted a brother and sister more than his old house. Everything he’s said about the whole journey has been positive, so to see him express a gamut of emotions and really begin to process how he’s felt is fascinating to see unfold.

In the story, he articulates how he vacillated between excitement and fear. He worried that maybe his siblings wouldn’t like him, or that maybe they might not all get along. He discusses how long the process took, and how he really thought it was going to be a much shorter timeframe. These are all things he never really articulated at the time, but all very normal reactions, and it’s gratifying to see him express and normalize them.

The story is still in its infancy, but already I can see how my son is using the written word to process his feelings and make sense of this past year - much like his mom does here at AdoptionBlogs! I look forward to seeing how his story ends!

I titled this Adoption Through the Eyes of a (Biological) Child because, even before NaNoWriMo and my son’s story, I had been thinking about having the kids re-tell their adoption story. I had read about that in a few of the books I have, and thought it might be a neat exercise for the kids. So, there may be a “Part 2” to this in the sense that it will be through the eyes of the child who has been adopted. Stay tuned!

Photo credit: Marie Stroughter