Though I was adopted as an infant, I began to see the adoption process from a new perspective when our family adopted a toddler from India. A few weeks before completing the adoption, I was driving my two biological children to a park. I told them, “Today we’re going to Indian Trail.”

It didn’t occur to me how much the park’s name sounded like our family’s new favourite vocabulary word – India. Clearly challenged by the geography involved, my two-year-old son, Rollie, thought the three of us were headed to South Asia – in the minivan – to get his new brother, Abhi.

Excited, Rollie exclaimed, “Me play Abhi!”

His eagerness warmed my heart.

The test of brotherhood

As any parent knows, though, the reality of two brothers learning to live and play together is an entirely different story. When they’re separated in age by just eight months, it gets even dicier.

Because we’d seen photographs of our Indian son riding in a red Little Tikes® play car, we borrowed the same model from our church playground for his homecoming. The moment we arrived home from the airport, Abhi spotted the toy and slid into the familiar driver’s seat.  No sooner had he settled in behind the wheel than his new brother climbed in the passenger-seat window and shoved him out the driver’s-side door.

That’s right, Abhi got carjacked his first day in America.

It was the moment I knew they were “real” brothers.

Toddler shopping

Part of me feared that my homegrown two-year-old had seen the 12-day absence of my husband and me as an exotic shopping trip to purchase another toddler. Rollie confirmed my suspicions one day over lunch.

The two older children were discussing what I’d given them for lunch. Four-year-old Zoe made the observation that each child had three grapes on his or her plate, and there were three children in the family.

Looking down, Rollie realized he actually had four grapes. Eager to gobble down the sweet fruit, he earnestly inquired, “When we buy one more kid, I can eat it?”

Toddler math. What are you gonna do?

Cultural sensitivity

After Abhi’s homecoming, we all started noticing other people of South Asian descent in our community. I was pushing the boys around Duke University in a jogging stroller when we approached a man who looked as though he fit the bill. I whispered to my boys, “Now there’s a man who looks like he might be from India.”

This was when I learned that two-year-olds have no appreciation for subtlety. Failing to notice my hushed tone, Rollie waited until our path intersected with the stranger’s to blurt out, “Who picked him up from India?”

Clearly I had my work on cultural sensitivity training cut out for me.

Jesus’ family situation

Because our family of five includes children by birth and by adoption, words like homecoming and birth mother are integral to our vocabulary.

During the week following Christmas, my daughter had been giving Jesus’ family situation some thought. Though she’d heard that Jesus was God’s Son, the plastic figurines in our Fisher-Price® Nativity set showed only Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus. I was secretly thankful the manufacturer had not attempted to sculpt a 2½-inch God.

Befuddled by the dissonance, my daughter asked pensively, “Mom, who is Jesus’ family?”

I made a quick mental inventory of the Nativity figures.

I began, “Mary...”

My daughter interrupted. “Is Joseph His father?”

I wasn’t sure how to answer. As an adoptee, I knew it was a delicate subject. The emotionally sensitive part of me wanted to say, “Of course, Joseph was His father.” The theologically sensitive part insisted, “Of course, Joseph wasn’t His father.”

I hedged, “Maybe Joseph adopted Him, but...”

My daughter quickly jumped in, “The Lord is His birth father, right?”

“Exactly!”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.