Nika's fiancee, Peter, didn't realize until last night that one of our kids was adopted; we didn't tell him which one, it was more like “Guess and if you get it right, you get an extra slice of birthday cake.” The kids were all at the table, laughing over a first-grader joke that Toni thought was the funnies thing ever, and I don't think they knew what the adults standing in the kitchen were talking about.
Peter considered it for a bit; Kevin has so many of Ian's talents—they can both dance like there's no tomorrow, they can both sing beautifully, and Kevin mimics Ian's habit of raising one eyebrow when he's either surprised by something or just doesn't completely buy what someone is telling him. And he looks like me; I evidently take after my mother's Hispanic roots, and Kevin is more Hispanic than anything else.
Rachel doesn't really look like either of us, and there's no clear composite of Ian's Irishness or my racial mix to be found by just looking at her. She's quieter than anyone else in this house (we think she got that all out of her system when she was a toddler) and much more deliberate in how she approaches things. The boys are both very outgoing, while she's a bit shy and it took her a while to warm up to both Peter and Nika.
Alex doesn't really look like either of us as well, but he has Ian's moodiness surrounding him(I'm sorry, sweetheart, but you are moody), and he's as deliberately ponderous as Ian is (without the shades of annoying paranoia.) He has Ian's quirky sense of humor, he plays the piano as beautifully as Ian does, he's as fiercely protective as his father and as generous. He has my eyes, and is sometimes as stubborn as I can be.
Kevin and Alex, Peter decided, were far too much like their parents; Kevin looks like me, Alex acts like Ian. He concluded that it had to be Rachel.
We let him have another slice of birthday cake anyway.
With a lot of parents, you ask them which of their kids is the adopted one and they have to stop and think about it; I don't think I've ever had to do that, but I am often taken aback by the question, because it's usually asked as if it matters. It doesn't. Ian pointed out while he was musing Kevin's birthday and that moment we first held him, the connection was the same. I did all the things with him that I did with Alex and Rachel when they were placed in my arms, and tough guy Ian, he cried the first time he held all three kids.
So no, I don't have to stop and think about it; maybe because there was something very special about the way Kevin came to us, that the people in my family knew before we did that we were his parents. That he's our son is an act of providence.
I love that from the outside, it's not that easy to guess which of the kids was that gift of fortune and destiny; that's how it should be. I love that Alex looks like his grandpa Conor and that Rachel looks like her grandma Maureen, and I admit, I especially love that Kevin looks so much like me. That no one can be sure, or that it would never occur to anyone that we adopted one of the kids, just serves as proof that families aren't created from biology, but from the heart.
Eventually the kids did notice that we were all looking at them and wanted to know why. Peter shrugged and told Kevin, “I was just telling your Mom how much you look like her.”
Kevin laughed and said, “Better Mom than Dad.”
Like Ian, I have a hard time believing he's eleven years old. Unlike Ian, I can't wait to see the teenager he'll be and the man he'll become. Because for all our faults, I think we're doing a pretty good job with these kids, and I want to see them as adults.
But not too soon. I'm allowed to be inconsistent in that; it's a rite of motherhood.
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