Visit With One Biological Brother

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Well, unfortunately we were only able to visit with one of Shy's biological brothers. Two, I don't think she will ever get to see until they are old enough to do it on their own. For some reason, their adoptive parents don't seem too interested in maintaining that relationship. The last brother (the one closest to Shy in age) was unable to make the trip up, and we were unable to stop by on our way back. We are planning on making that stop in May when we go down.

Before I get too into the visit though, I do have one funny (I thought so) little exchange that took place on the way up. There was a manufactured home stopped on the side of the road with the requisite "WIDE LOAD" pick-up truck behind it. The driver was out checking something out and I turned to Shy and said:


"Look Shy, there is a house on the side of the road!"

Shy looked at me and said "Where?

I said "Right there" pointing to it as we drove by.

Shy responded with: "Daddy, that's not a house, that's a trailer with windows!"

Anyway.....

We went to Kari's house and spent the weekend at her place. We did spend most of Saturday with Amy, as she was the birthday girl this weekend. DW took Amy out for lunch and that is when Shy and I went to visit her brother. The brother we visited is the third of the 5 biological full brothers and sister. He is 9 years old, and there is little doubt when you look at the children together that they are brother and sister.

I called ahead to his adoptive mother to see if I could take him to lunch at McDonald's with Shyanne, and she thought that was great. When we first arrived, he was outside shooting baskets. Shy went over and gave him a big hug and started to shoot baskets as well. Since she is so small, the first thing her brother did was lower the net so that she could make baskets. How nice of him.

As a matter of fact, he was quite nice to her the whole time. Treating her as any big brother would treat his little sister.I was quite impressed. We had a great conversation. He said that school was going well for him except he did get in trouble a couple of times. Apparently he is a fighter at school. I know he has had a lot of problems with that. I think some of it relates to the fact that he had three different families during foster care. The first family he was placed with had both him and the youngest boy. It seems he was having problems getting along with one of the existing children and they had to place him somewhere else.

The second family he was placed with was a single father. He had adopted one child through foster care previously. We are not sure what exactly happened here, but he was removed from that situation for reasons that were not totally clear to us. It was that gentleman's intent to adopt him as well. Anyway, when he was removed from that house, he was placed in foster care with the family that has adopted him. I think that changing of families helped to create some of the issues he had.


Anyway, there were two significant conversations that took place while we were at McDonald's.
The first one, her brother asked me if Shy was adopted. I was kind of surprised as he was at her adoption party and she was the first one adopted, but I simply answered that she was indeed adopted. He said that was good and that all of his brothers were also adopted as well as him. He also thought it was good that they all got to visit with each other. He is the one child that has contact with all of the siblings. The two oldest only have contact with him when they have a shared therapy session together. The two youngest also only have contact with him. IN any event, he seemed happy about that, and I was happy we were able to arrange the meeting for them this weekend.

The other conversation of note was after Shy looked at me and called me "daddy". Her brother looked at me and said "She calls you daddy?"

I said that she did and that she called her mother mommy. I then asked what he called his parents. He told me that he called them by their first names. He then said that they had been asking him to call them mom and dad, but that he just wasn't used to it yet. I think that is understandable given his past and the situation he finds himself in. I think that age also plays a part in the whole thing as well.

I know that there will be changes in the way things are with Shy as well, as she goes through different phases of her life. We will deal with them as they come and do the best we can for her. I do hope that her brother feels comfortable enough to call his new adoptive parents mom and dad before too long. They are really good people, and I know it would make their day.

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