It’s 10:00. The kids just finished meal #5. I’m underestimating that, but let’s say it’s 5. Elam had soccer at 5:00. Then we whipped through our church’s neighborhood outreach event. Up the street, Calista’s game started at 7pm.
And now, I will declare we have survived the longest soccer game ever played by elementary children. Survive is overestimating but let’s say we did and call it a day. Let’s also not mention how disrespectful I was to Calista’s soccer coach, how impatient with the kids during said meal and over the whole soccer thing the first night! Let me admit, however, that Brian is Calista’s coach and I have some major repentance happening in my heart and with my kids tonight.
The fun part of the night was that there was a sand-filled play area with 4 swings up the hill from the game. XS and Elam managed to get FILTHY and I wish I had had my phone to take a pic of THAT!
During their playtime we chatted with a grandmother and a few other soccer siblings. XS was having a hard time sharing with a girl who was kind enough to share her shovel with him. Elam piped up that “He is Chinese,” as if that explained everything. He meant to say he speaks Chinese but whatever.
That led the little girl to ask why we went to get him in China. “That’s where he lived. We couldn’t have found him anywhere else!”
It reminds me of the personal email from “ba-ba policeman” we received this weekend. The man who found XS as a baby sent us a message that he was so grateful for our adopting him and that “we had to travel halfway around the world to find him. it’s destiny,” he said.
The little girl was struggling to understand just why XS had to be from China. Eventually I asked her where she came from. “My mom got me from a regular place.”
Her friend wasn’t to be outdone. She walked over to her mom and asked permission to tell me where she came from. “My mom got me from the doctor,” she affirmed.
Well, eventually I told them my other 2 kids came from regular places, but it was time for us to get one from a special place.
It was my official hilarious, unique conversation with someone, albeit someone under 6, about adoption and why we did what we did.