When my son Taylor was only 4 years old, we were driving home from preschool and he excitedly pointed to the sky. "Look Mom!", he shouted excitedly, "There's a Goldberg and Osborne!" I was puzzled, as these were the names of two personal injury attorneys who often advertised on the television, but we were not on a street with any billboards.



As he kept pointing upward, however, I noticed a hawk that was circling in the air. It was all I could do to not burst out laughing, as Taylor was very sincere. The commercials for these attorneys used an eagle--I suppose to represent justice--and Taylor had somehow become confused by these commercials, assuming that "Goldberg and Osborne" was the appropriate name for a bird of prey.

Holly, on the Africa adoption blog wrote an informative article about journaling. As a mother of many who always feels that I will remember something cute or funny that my children said or did, I second her voice of experience that you do indeed forget if it isn't written down. Taking the time to write when you are sleep deprived and adjusting to a new child in your home is not easy, but if you don't write it down, those thoughts and memories are lost forever. If I hadn't written down what Taylor had said at the time about the hawk, I would have forgotten many of the details.

When Benjamim arrived home, he was profoundly deaf and had no functional language because he had not been exposed to any sign language in his orphanage. He not only couldn't write down his experiences because he was only 4 years old, he didn't even have language to share with me what he was feeling. I took it upon myself to journal what it felt like for me to have him in my home, and also tried to write what I thought he might be feeling. The first time he used a new sign, I celebrated by writing it down in my journal.

What if your new child is old enough to read and write for herself?
She too will forget the early days, weeks and months of what it felt like to join her new adoptive family if she doesn't write it down. Perhaps she had a day where she wanted nothing other than to leave her new home and go back to her previous one. Encourage her to write it down.

On the other hand, she might have a day like we had yesterday where we dropped everything to go play in the snow. The area where we live only gets snow about once every 5 years, so even having a few inches is cause for celebration. Our new son was having a rough day, but when we drove up to the foothills of the mountains for an afternoon of playing in the snow, he became so excited that he forgot to be his oppositional self that we had seen all morning.




When we returned home, I encouraged him to write about his experience. If he doesn't put down the positives, he won't have much to balance the negatives when he goes back to read about his early days here.

Caleb only reads and writes Chinese right now, so for him, writing is a safe experience. He knows no one else in his family reads or writes Chinese, so he can express himself in a notebook without worrying about anyone else reading it.

If your child reads and writes English and worries about her privacy, purchase a journal that can be locked and ceremoniously hand her the key. At a time when your child has very little control over what is happening to her, having the key to a private journal as well as being able to write down what she is feeling, can give her a sense of power and control over at least one aspect of her life. Someday when she is older, she will cherish the memories that she has of her early days in your home...memories that if she had not written down would have been soon forgotten.