So, as I was saying in my last post, my girls went on a week long sleepaway field trip with the school last week. If I have ever wondered what would it be like to have only one child, I am still wondering. That's because when you have three children and two of them are away for a week...you still have three children. The two who are away still occupy your emotional, mental, and psychological space, even though they are not in your physical space. That's what happened with us.

Every other minute, I was wondering what the girls were doing and hoping that they were enjoying themselves and worrying that they were okay. Nothing about the rhythm of the house was the same. The morning routine, the evening routine, the night time routine were all just, different. Less frantic? Yes. Less discombobulated? Oh, to be sure. But, also, less hugs, less kisses, less I love you mommies. In short, I really missed 'em. Their brother maybe not so much so. My husband missed them, but not in that mommy kind of way...whatever it is that I mean by that.

At some point my tortured mind (I have written before that I have a way of running around in my head wayyyy too much) started to wonder if the process I was going through was in any way similar to what adopted children and/or their first parents might go through, but on a much more intense level and in a much more gut wrenching way. Does a first mother pass the hours, days, weeks wondering what her child might be doing, hoping that he or she is having fun, worrying that her child is okay? I'm sure she does. At least, from what I have read of the various accoutns of birth mothers, that is what seems to be the case. Do adopted children spend that same amount of time and energy running around in their own heads with similar worries and questions? From, what I am learning, I believe they do.

I wouldn't begin to compare my emotional and psychological experience of being away from the girls for one week with the experience of what a first mother or an adopted child might go through in terms of missing, or longing for one another. Still, I think on some small level I was able to garner a little bit of insight on how that process might unfold over a longer period of time.

It is just one of those things, like so many things in adoption, that made me go...hmmm.

Next...the reunion!