Resemblance

We are not obviously an adoptive family. Some families are--they've adopted transracially, transculturally. They get a lot more questions than we do. My best friend CeeCee adopted her two girls from China. People either get right away that they adopted or they think her husband is Asian.

What we get a lot of is this: X-Man and Miss Z look just like each other (one guy asked if they were twins, which cracked us up). X and the Mr. look just like each other. And this weekend, I got this for the first time.

Random Dad: How old is she?
Poppy: 15 months.
Random Dad: She looks just like you.
Poppy: (interior monologue--which direction should I go with this? Point out the fact that it's mere coincidence since she doesn't have a single one of my genes? Or just shine it on, since the feel I get from this particular guy is that he might launch into a litany of questions I don't feel like dealing with in front of our Music Together class, which is about to start?") I opt for the latter and say- oh.
Random Dad: Do you get that a lot?
Poppy: No. Actually people say she looks just like her brother.

Then class starts and--oh joy--we get to sing all those fabulous Music Together songs (I'll save the detailed MT rant for another post). But at that point I was off the hook.

I don't go around saying "these are my adopted kids" for obvious reasons (lameness being primary among them). My general policy is to deal with the information as a fact (which it is) in an appropriate context (when it arises).
Example:
Client wife (at a business dinner w/ the Mr. one month after Miss Z.'s birth): Wow, you have a one month old. You're like Heidi Klum. (and I'm not making that reference up just to impress you.)
Poppy: Thank you, but we adopted so I can't really take credit for getting back in shape.

Example 2:
Mom at playground: So, did you have a difficult birth, since X was a preemie?
Poppy: Nope, we adopted him.

And then I sometimes get really weird responses to the information. A common one is "are they brother and sister?" (okay, let's all just meditate on that for a minute). Also popular are really personal questions about their birth mothers (often laced with Lifetime Movie stereotypes and assumptions). If I sound ranty, I've actually mellowed a lot about this in the past few years. You should have heard me on the topic when I was a stressed out, sleep-deprived, newly-minted parent.