Summer's great grandmother, G.G., called us up and invited us to dinner because some distant relative were passing through and how often do your kids get to meet their third cousins? So we drove over there and met a lovely mom and three kids from Minnesota and their neighbor, who'd come along on their vacation. The dad is a farmer and could not take enough time off to drive out; he'd be flying out and driving back with them.
Upon meeting them in the driveway I experienced a flutter of anxiety--less than I would have a year ago, but still, I steeled myself for comments about Charlie's facial differences. Inside, I stood at the kitchen island with the Minnesota mom, prepping salad and garlic bread. "The six-year-old first came to our family as a foster child," she tells me. "She was a victim of domestic violence and suffered frontal lobe damage."
I wonder what she was thinking in the driveway. And I wonder when my anxiety over this--this gorgeous, hilarious, Olympic caliber, rock star baby--is going to go away completely. When will I break the cycle once and for all?
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