This Week in August

I glanced at the calendar this week and realized it's been three years since Scarlett came to live with us. As with everything, it feels impossible that it's been three years already and that there was a time she wasn't here. People often ask me if we celebrate the day she moved in—some call it "Gotcha Day" (which, honestly, makes me shudder)—and if we have a party, like a birthday party. I usually fumble with an answer, and think afterward about what I wish I would've said. So, here. This is what I usually wish I would've said:

I haven't written much about how Scarlett came to be part of our family on social media—and won't, because, like I said before, it's not my story to tell. Most of the parts of it that are mine are so tangled up in hers that I can't tell them either. I think this is one of those things that is very hard for anyone who became a parent in a unique way. It's a story that lots of people seem to want to hear—from the grocery store clerk who noticed that you have an extra person in your company all of a sudden, to the nosy lady in the park who observed that one of your kids "doesn't look very much like any of you!" And it feels like it's your story because people are asking you, because it impacted you a lot, because it changed your life.

But it's...just not your story.

The only part of the story that really feels like mine is that early on in 2017, Barclay and I had some pretty interesting conversations about feeling like we were waiting for someone, but we didn't know who it was. We briefly discussed foster care, but—I know this is going to sound a bit crazy—that didn't feel like "it." So we just waited. We met Scarlett when she was four months old, a few months after we'd begun having these conversations. She was living with my aunt at the time, and she came to live with us three months later. 

Since then, we've come to know and love her—and we've come to know and love her parents. To answer another common question, yep, we do call them her parents...for that is what they are! Scarlett calls me Mom, and she calls her other mom Mom too. And when I'm talking to Scarlett, I call her mom Mom and her mom calls me Mom when she's talking to Scarlett about me. This stuff is only as confusing as the adults let it be—she has two grandmas and two grandpas, and that doesn't weird her out, why shouldn't she have two moms and two dads? 

So she's got this big, weird family that operates a bit differently than most others, and we're all okay with it...which is why it would feel strange to me to celebrate the day that she moved in to the bedroom across the hall, as opposed to simply celebrating her birthday, the day she came into this world to all of the people who love her. I don't think there needs to be a division, as though there was a time when she was "theirs" and a time when she became "ours." What's important to me is that she knows she's loved by all of us, and that her parents feel honored and loved too.

Other people might see all of this differently. I might see it differently later on, who knows? But for now, this is how it is. For now, every August, I quietly observe that day as it passes, and remember seven-month-old Scarlett laughing in the back seat of my car at Sully as they got to know each other. I remember the many sleepless nights that followed that reminded me vividly of the sleepless nights after Sully was born. I remember her first steps and first words and first Christmas and birthday. I remember trying to figure out what she liked to eat and how she liked to play and how to bring out that hilarious belly-laugh she's so famous for. I think when she's a bit older I'll bring her into this quiet reverie, and this week in August might just be a chance to talk to her about herself, to tell her the stories I'm not going to tell you.