"...a nice addition to the family"

...words directly from the mouth of our very matter-of-fact son, Riley.  He is a boy-of-few-words, but his words always speak directly from his heart and soul. 

We sat our three kids down last night and asked them how they would feel about having another brother or sister join our family.  There were a few confused faces, and some priceless comments...

Maura:  "Yea!"
Aidan:  "I need to think about it for a minute."
Riley:   "It would be a nice addition to the family."

Then we explained that this sibling would join our family in a special way.  Aidan guessed adoption right away, he even said "from a different country."  I think his little ears have been picking up on some of our "adult" conversations lately. 

Riley:  "I can't believe we're going to adopt a kid from China...it's AMAZING!"
Maura:  "Mommy, are they gonna stay at our house everyday...forever?"
Riley:  "It's gonna be kinda weird not understanding your sibling."
Aidan:  "No Riley, they know English AND Spanish!"

So, I think "the talk" went pretty well.  The kids seem open to the idea, even a bit excited.  It will be a long wait for them though...which is why we originally planned to wait a while before telling them.  But now, since we had to tell our neighbors, employers, doctors, etc. (because of some  necessary paperwork) we decided we needed to tell the kids before they heard it from someone else. 

And now that we have told them, I think the whole world will know soon.  Riley will tell everyone at  school, Aidan will tell all his teammates (and that's a lot of people considering that right now he plays ice hockey, flag football, baseball and soccer), and Maura will tell everyone at the grocery store, mall, post office, and every other place we drag her along to all day long. 

Now it seems so official, so real, so exciting!  And we feel so very blessed to be given this opportunity...we have closed our eyes and we are listening to our hearts, patiently awaiting our journey to whatever is destined to be, knowing that we will be led to a most precious gift.