January 20, 2011 stands out as a milestone date in my life. It’s the day Dawn and I adopted A.J., K.E. and K.R. It’s the day I became a dad and the day my life changed forever.
For the previous nine months the kids lived with us under foster-to-adopt status. We knew it was a matter of time before we adopted them. But the adoption was unofficial and we couldn’t call them our sons and daughter.
But the date came and BOOM I was an “official” dad.
Did anything really change besides the kids now being “our” kids and we being their parents? No, because we saw them as our kids before this official date. And the adoption was a formality that needed to happen.
Fast forward to April 2014. What has transpired over the past four years with the kids? Obviously a lot. Too much to include in a blog entry. We experienced birthdays, holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving, Gotcha Day (the day kids get adopted).
So many joyous occasions occurred over the past years. There were the times the kids eagerly searched for Easter eggs outside our house. There were trips to Texas to visit my family, which included the kids’ first airplane ride. There was the introduction to Lord of the Rings, horror movies, reading books and the kids making new friends in Holland.
Over the years, the kids have come into their own. A.J. blossomed into quite the high school wrestler and even made it to the regional tournament his senior year. K.E. enjoys acting and drama and is into zombie video games. K.R. loves learning and reading about anything that catches her attention.
So have our kids grown? I’d say yes. They have come a long way since they first arrived at our house, unsure, scared and wondering about us. And while I have a perspective on being an adoptive parent, I can’t imagine what it’s like to enter a strange home to settle in until adulthood.
But adopting kids does come with a price. The kids come with their own trauma, trauma that many foster kids acquire over time due to a variety of factors. Through all the fun and happy moments I’ve experienced many sad ones, too.
Fear, always an underlying entity, has crept up and rears its ugly head. Disappointment appears often and sometimes anger follows it. At times sadness makes an appearance and tears are shed. And tension can stick around long enough to be the sixth member of our household.
It’s these times when I wish these kids were mine since birth and all of these issues vanished from their lives. But it’s not the case. Dawn and I have to be patient and try to guide the kids the best way possible and raise them to be productive, healthy adults.
Let’s pause for a second and bring in another integral part to this puzzle. There is the issue of my vision disability.
When adopting the kids, I never truly considered my disability as a hindrance or roadblock to being a good dad or father figure. Has my disability played a role in being a dad? Yes, in positive and negative ways.
I was upfront with my disability and told the kids while they were coming over during visitations. They needed to know what my vision limitations were. Over the following months and years watching me helped to understand what I could and could not see.
On many occasions over the years, the kids walk with me to the library or the local corner store. Even though I am capable of seeing cars coming, the kids take the initiative and say, “We can go now.” At stores they help when it comes to finding the right drink or candy or chips if I’m having difficulty. At the local aquatic center, my middle son K.E., tags along and swims near me. Often I think he does this both for companionship and to make sure I’m OK.
Even with my schoolwork, my kids help me. Both K.E. and K.R. assist with reading grades as I plug them into my gradebook. It is a tremendous help for me and cuts down on the amount of time it takes me to finish my work.But, with a vision disability, there are times when it gets used against me. My daughter often has tricked me and taken food or snacks while I’m in charge. She knows I cannot see her doing certain things and she knows getting away with it is easy. This trickery used to occur often. As of late, the trickery has diminished. I’ve talked to her about respect and that tricking her dad or anyone else with a disability is wrong.
My kids have brought a unique perspective to my life. Because of them I am more compassionate, empathizing, patient, and understanding. A certain kind of love has blossomed in me; it's the kind of love that come with being a dad. I love my kids.
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