Costumes & grocery store adoption bonding

Just wanted to share a few photos of our fun weekend. Peter and I dressed as, umm, geezers for a costume wedding reception. Much of our costumes came courtesy of my Mom: I was sporting her fabulous cat-eye sunglasses from the 1960s, along with her hat, gloves, and fur-trimmed coat, while Peter carried my grandpa's cane.

The kids, however, were way cuter! Building off Anya Rashi's wish to be dressed as cheese, Aaron and Nathan agreed to be a mouse and a mousetrap. Nathan even made up a name for his rodent trap: The Mouse-inator 3000!

* * *

This morning brought one of those blessed moments that seem to happen at just the right time along this adoption journey. As Anya Rashi and I were headed toward the check-out at our grocery store, a woman in her late 50s stopped us.

"Excuse me," she said, "but is your daughter adopted from India?" She went on to say that she and her husband have two adult children who were born in Pune! Her son is now the director of aquatics at one of our local YMCAs, and her daughter works for a city Park & Recreation Department. Hoping to gain some wisdom from her, I asked how their experiences had been when their kids were older.

She said her kids have a positive view of being adopted, but ran into a few bumps in the road as they grew up because of other people's perceptions. When her daughter was in elementary school, she came home from school one day and innocently asked her mother "What does n----- mean?" She had never heard the word before, but another child had called her that at school. Her son has been subjected to extensive searches at airports EVERY single time he has flown. He gets profiled as a terrorist every time he sets foot in an airport, and once was pulled out of line for a second search after the first one.

She congratulated us on our upcoming adoption, and said she remembered how hard it was to wait -- she and her husband got the call about their first child during a New Year's Eve party at their house, and her eyes still glowed as she retold the story. She also showed me photos of her gorgeous grown children. It was such a joy to talk with a mom who has raised her kids and navigated some of the difficult parts of having children from another culture.

We said goodbye -- my frozen food was melting, and she was visiting the store with her clients (she works in an assisted living center) -- and both of us walked away feeling blessed, I think.