My head is literally hurting from thinking so much, sometimes to the point of tears.

With about a dozen adoptive mamas today, I sat in a comfortable theater chair and allowed a film–Somewhere Between–about four teenage girls who were adopted from China to make me very uncomfortable. I suppose that’s a good thing.

Girls sharing about their fear of failure, of feeling like they have to prove themselves of worth. Not physically resembling their families, not ever just blending in. Stares, unfair questions, the “kindness” of a stranger at the beauty shop welcoming them to America and telling them how lucky they are. The deep rooted desire to know something, anything, about their birth families. Another girl remembering the day she was left on the street corner. Finding a birth family and seeing the bedroom she didn’t grow up in. Saying goodbye to her birthfather, a redo of the goodbye they never got to have. The cries of a 5 year old when she realizes she’s leaving all she knows to come home with her adoptive family. I can’t get her crying face out of my mind.

You can see why my head is hurting.

I found myself driving with an urgency to get home leaving the theater tonight, wanting to scoop up my baby girl and take all the hard things away. Part of me feels so stuck that I can’t.

She greeted me at the kitchen door, sat on my lap, gave me lots of kisses and chattered away about her day. She’s sleeping peacefully now in our bed, all cozied up in a nest of covers. For now, right now, there are no hard things, only comfort. And, I can look at her and take a deep breath.

Tomorrow, next week, 10 years from now, Lord, help me to be the mother she needs me to be.

“Is she from China or Japan?”

That was the question I heard a boy ask Ashlyn this morning as waited for the school doors to open.

“She’s from China.” That’s all she said. No bells and whistles, just a simple answer for what she sees as something quite simple. She’s her sister. She was adopted from China. And, yes, she’s a monkey. That’s pretty much how Ashlyn sees it.

I guest posted today over on Shawn Smucker’s blog about a conversation I had with Ashlyn on Wednesday morning in the same place we stood today. I have a feeling those 10 minutes everyday standing outside Barkley School this year will become moments I remember. Maybe she will too.

From Wednesday….

Just another morning. We were leaning against the warm brick wall of the school, feeling the morning sun on our legs. Kids were filing into the school yard and filling the blacktop with color and conversation as we waited for the doors to open and another day of school to start.

Lydia poked at a dead bug on the ground with a stick, drawing lots of attention from curious kids who gathered around her and bent down to see the ickyness. We smiled while we watched her enjoy the bug and all the reactions of the big kids.

“Everybody in my class loves Lydia,” Ashlyn told me.

“Yeah, big kids usually like little kids like that,” I said, picturing many class parties we had been to with kids all fighting to get close to Lydia.

“They ask me a lot of questions about her.”

“They do? Like what?”

“Mostly questions about China.”

“Yeah? What kinds of questions?”

“Like what a orphanage is like, if there are any other orphans in China….”

“Hmm. Do you tell them there are millions of orphans in China?”

“Yeah.” She said quietly. “Why aren’t there orphanages here?”

“You know, babe. We don’t have orphanages here for kids really anymore. We have foster care where kids who don’t have parents or kids who need homes live with families and then some get adopted. You know, like your cousin. He was adopted from foster care.”

“He was?”

“Yeah, remember? He doesn’t look different, and he was born right around here. But, he was adopted.”

“Oh…cool.”

The doors opened. I got waves from all and a hug from one at least as they rushed to get in the doors. “Have a good day – I love you,” I called out to Ashlyn still in earshot.

“I love you too. Lydia, Lydia, bye, I love you!”

“Bye!” she yells as she breaks from her science lab on the blacktop. And, then I scooped her up and walked home. Just another morning.