My Little Family

My kids at work haven't forgotten our "family" from Tuesday. In fact, they make sure all the other kids in our group who missed out know about it and get them involved too. I was a bit worried about that. Its fun to play like they're all siblings and call them different names and hear 'MOMMY' being called across the room (in a playful manner), but I was concerned about the fact they might start undermining my authority as the counselor and getting out of control with it all.

But today I decided I didn't really have to. Only 1 girl takes it to far, she insists on being known as only "Lizzy" and will be the crazy one. But after talking to her, she did calm down and I talked to my kids, telling them what would happen if they started getting out of line. So from then on things went fine! I'm really glad too, I've seen a small change in my group this past week.

We go to rooms and instead of the kids breaking off into small groups of 2-3, everyone's been playing together and they're getting along! I've watched some kids who never really played together before spend hours running around because they are brothers or sisters and so they have something in common to play. I've actually had less problems out of them when we are in small group time because they are playing so well together! I'm not sure how long this is going to last before they all get tired of it and move on back, but it really has been a fun week with our little 'game'.

Things in Common

Yesterday I was at work playing air hockey with some of my kids. I don't remember how it started, but they were talking about siblings and finally, they turned to me and asked about mine. (I knew it was coming, the great thing about kids, they always pull you into their conversations.) I started out saying I had two sisters, but then told them those weren't biological. I knew one girl in my group was adopted like me, so that was for her sake. Then this other girls speaks up and says that she was adopted as well! So the three of us sat around and talked about being adopted. One was from Russia, myself and the other girl are here in Texas. We talked about the biological siblings they had, why our parents had to give us up, how old we were when we were adopted (none of us over 8 months) and about our adopted families.

What I really enjoyed was even though they both like me, when they found out that Miss Heidi was like them, they established a connection that no one else in our group has. Yes they're 8 years old and it doesn't mean that much to them, but it means enough to know that I've got something in common with them. It was also fun to have the other kids listen in and ask questions etc. I love going to work!!

Happy 4th of July everyone!!!