Enjoying them just the way they are

I was writing this last night while we sat around the campfire and a storm blew up, not just a little storm, a huge break your tent and cause everyone to run for cover kind of storm. Needless to say the laptop was stowed safely in the van and by the time the tent was repaired and the children were settled I was not really up to taking the time to play with the wifi connection to get my article to post.  So here it is a day late…

I am on vacation at the cottage with my family. Our family is an eclectic mix of people as most families are but none of these people are biologically related to me and yet we are family.  We spend holidays together, we argue and disagree and every summer we spend a few days together eating smores, swimming in the lake and watching our children play.

We are connected by the biological relationship of our sons, they are brothers and for a variety of reasons were adopted into two different families.  My sons, Fudge and Calvin are the older brother of a sweet young boy we refer to online as E. All 3 of the boys have a variety of special needs as a result of the choices that their birth mother made and yet today as they played at the cottage you would never know of the issues that they have.  They are playing and laughing and having fun just as you would expect brothers to do on a hot summer day.

It is nice to get away from the therapy, doctors and hospital visits and just let our kids act like kids. Yes there are accommodations that need to be made for them but when you are among family it is always a bit easier because everyone helps out and the kids are safe and happy. During the school year my kids have a variety of appointments each week,  appointments that they feel  single them out as different from their peers.  And they are right, they are different.  It is hard to be different, it is hard to be the only kid who wears glasses, has juvenile arthritis,  has ADHD, is adopted,  pick an issue, being different is hard. Yet for these few days when our boys are surrounded by family their differences do not stand out, they are just kids, playing and having fun.

May you also find time this summer to enjoy the wonderful people that your children are and may they enjoy the wonder that is being a child in the summer sun.

J blogs at Stellar Parenting 101 where she writes about being a parent through older child adoption and all that it entails.