A Word Misspoken

In the kitchen amidst the pleasurable aroma of banana bread wafting from the hot oven, the Colombian princess and I were in the heat of a discussion regarding Colombian food.  Often, as the days go by, I ask questions about her foster home to find out more details about her life when we were praying earnestly for her, but had not met her yet.  She gleefully reported to me once again that her favorite foods were rice, beans and meat.  I needed details.  That couldn’t have been all that she ate…. or could it???  I asked about many other South American dishes that I am vaguely aware of…. nada.  Jokingly, I added that we need to take her back to Colombia so she could remember the foods of her homeland.  I thought it was sort of funny.  Flabbergastedly she yelled, “YOU’RE TAKING ME BACK????”   Oops.  No.  Never.

Another heated discussion followed about the words FOREVER… ALWAYS… OURS…. and I gingerly explained that we hope to go visit Colombia with her again, but we cannot and will not leave her there.  I reminded her of the picture of Papi signing the Sentencia papers that translated to: You will ALWAYS be a Crosby from now on.   With the horrible vision of the little Russian adoptee who was recently sent back to his birthland with a note pinned to his jacket, I vehemently stated, “We cannot give you back… and we don’t want to.”

Then I reminded her of the meeting we had at ICBF (Colombian Family Services.. kind of) with a man named Dennis.  After having Nora in our care for five days, he asked if we wanted to go forward with the adoption…. WE SAID YES!  I also reminded her that Dennis asked HER if she wanted to stay with us.  She said YES!  (Hopefully she hasn’t regretted that answer too many times in the last 10 1/2 months!)

Last night I was scrapbooking Nora’s “baby book” (Term used loosely… as it contains her earliest photos… but no baby is seen, sadly.) I tenderly glued in the pictures of that day at ICBF.  I realized that after being with us for five days, and LOVING trying on and wearing all the pretty clothes we brought for her, she carefully picked out her outfit for the ICBF meeting….. every single piece of clothing she put on, right down to her underwear was the clothing she came to us with.  She didn’t use a single article of clothing from her new collection.  Same sleeve-too-short sweater… same plastic white sandals… I wondered what was going through her mind as we drove to the meeting? Did someone tell her to do that in case we said no??? SOOOOOOOOO much for a little girl to ponder in her heart.

So glad she’s HOME!

Tags: adoptee, adoption, adoptive mother, adoptive parent, Colombia, Colombian Adoption, Colombian food, Colombian princess, final adoption decree, ICBF, mom, papi, rice and beans, russia, Russian boy, Sentencia