People often lose their common sense when faced with an adopted baby. I have heard the most ridiculous comments. A smattering:
MC as a toddler
When we brought MC home, people would hear our story and then whisper, “Are you gonna tell her she’s adopted?” I’d answer, “I’m thinking she’ll figure it out whether we do or not.”
When we brought home DK and JT, DK was literally twice as big at seven months old than six-month-old JT, who was a bit sickly. She’s Central Asian; he’s Russian and German. Yet I was asked repeatedly, even after I said they were four weeks apart, “Are they twins?” Really?
Or better: “Do they speak English?” Yes. Fluently. At seven months old. We start Mandarin next month.
A better question might have been, “Why is DK so fat?” In the “baby house” they believed fat babies survived the brutal winters more easily, so they fed them as much as they would eat. She was a compliant child, so she ate until she was stuffed.
And had people seen them in Kaz, the best question would have been, “Why is your son in eye-blinding pink?” Well, over there they don’t have the same traditions we do (some would say fashion sense). There is no pink-for-girls and blue-for-boys. In the baby house, all the children share the clothes. Clothes are worn, washed, and put in one big pile. On the windswept steppes of Astana in November, it got very cold, very quickly, and for whatever reason, JT and DK were put in matching neon fuchsia snowsuits whenever we were allowed to take them outside. JT was actually in pink a number of times we came to visit. That’s OK—it matched his pink cheeks.