Choosing to Love
 Adopting a child of toddler age or beyond takes creative parenting and lots of love. Experienced parents, Todd and Gretchen adopted their adorable six-year-old daughter Selah from Ethiopia in January of this year. For Gretchen, their bonding is about choices.
- Send her to school in clothes that match...or let her wear the red Dorothy glitter shoes from the dress-up box?
- Make her eat the oatmeal she requested but now spits out with a disdainful look....or put it aside and give her something new with a smile?
- Insist she nap so I can get some things done...or lay down with her for some giggling and tickling?
- Get incredibly frustrated when she tries to turn on the computer/dvd/bathtub/videocamera by herself....or praise her independence?
- Respond to each act of disrespect or disobedience by teaching her a lesson about how to behave differently...or just love her...sometimes with no lessons or training or strings attached?
Daily, I'm challenged with choices on how to parent our new daughter.
Mother/child bonding is different with a newborn. They're helpless and totally dependent on mommy. There's something about having someone totally dependent on you that encourages a mom to rise to the occasion of being a loving parent (that, and post-pregnancy hormones!). Slowly, your child begins to assert their independence, all the while understanding that mommy is a safe place to run back to.
My 6-year-old has lived as one of the oldest children in the orphanage. She's had to be totally dependent on her own. Though she still wants a mommy, she also wants to do things her way and has her own ideas and opinions about things. When my daughter runs ahead in the store, she may never look back to make sure mom is still behind her.
Loving this new daughter isn't identical as learning to love my biological children. This does require much more of a choice. As opposed to a helpless newborn, my 6-year-old challenges my authority and my patience. Throughout my day I'm confronted by the importance of filling her emotional bucket with unconditional love and encouragement, yet find myself often unwilling or resentful about doing so. A daily reality is the choice to continue the busy pace of family life, or intentionally and sometimes painfully slow down to read, cuddle, laugh, and spoil her.
So, that's what we're working on at the Magruder house... We're cutting back on activities and outings and keeping our daughter close to mom and dad. We love introducing Selah to all of our wonderful friends, but creating that parent/child bond is something we are intentional about. It means all of us learning to turn around in the store just to make sure the other is still there…and it means that even in the little things...the oatmeal and the glitter Dorothy slippers... I will choose to love.
On International Children's Day, June 1st, Gretchen posted to her blog one of Selah's own choices. Instead of reverting to an old coping mechanism, Selah, in a mournful and growing moment, "crawled right into my lap and put her tear-covered face in the crook of my neck," says Gretchen. These are the choices of a bonding family.
Welcome home, Magruders!
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