W.I.S.E Up

Today we spent a special day with Hope. We started out early by dropping Luke off with Grandma and Grandpa for the day. What a gift for them to allow us this day with Hope. We headed to Eau Claire for the W.I.S.E Up seminar. How informative! I love that they programming that empowers children as the keepers of their stories. Ron and I are still processing e information from different perspectives. This is the basic acronym that provides children with tools to access when they are confronted with invasive personal questions:
W = Walk Away (could also just simply mean change the subject or in someway deflect the question)
I = It's Private (It is absolutely 100% OK to use this option.)
S = Share (any, all, some, bits and pieces...)
E = Educate (teach others to whatever extent feels comfortable)
Isn't it wonderful to have options? It was nice to have the children all assured that do not have to become "the face" of adoption to everyone they encounter. They don't have to share personal details with nosy strangers in the grocery store. And, they can be guarded with their peers too. I think one thing adoptive parents (myself included) can be guilty of is thinking our children will be as excited as we are to share our experiences, what a miracle we think adoption is, and how precious we think the culture of their birth is. We need to honor that our kids just want to be kids.
One of the other more interesting parts of our morning was a discussion about what children feel about adoption as they grow. We talked about the perspectives of adopted children AND non-adopted children. The reality for a lot of our children is that they are often lone examples of what their peers know about adoption outside of Disney movies (where adoption stories oftentimes involve a villain) and the media (which most often only reports tragedy and horror stories regarding adoption and foster care in particular).
Ron asked Hope, "How many kids who are adopted do you think you know?" "About 100," she answered, and she's probably right. "How many kids who are adopted do you think your classmates know?" Hope held up a single finger. One. Wow. Now there is some pressure, whether we like to think so or not.
I'm so glad we got to share this morning with Hope. We have some thinking to do.
After the conference this morning, we grabbed a couple of quick geocaches in Owen park before doing a little shopping.
One with tradables...




One without.








This girl's got style!








Cool Tree - Scooped her right up








Dinner at Hu Hot - Mmmmmmm




This was an important day for the three of us. We haven't had a lot of Hope focused time since coming home in August. We were so thankful!
We told Hope several times today how much we loved spending the day with her, how special it was to learn things together, and how much we love her. Ron confessed, "I kind of miss Luke today." Hope replied with, "Yeah but we haven't had any stinky diapers today." hahahahaha When asked what was one thing she did miss about Luke she said, "His happy smile." We have a couple of pretty awesome children.
Thanks for reading this post. It is an important one. Check out the W.I.S.E. Up conference if it comes near you.

I'll end with a cute picture I grabbed on my phone on our way out this morning. LOVE the chill in the air and I LOVE these two precious kiddos.


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