Finding her own kind of family

Baby Girl turned 4. She wanted to be an artist. She learned some sign language and Spanish. She gave up Mickey Mouse Clubhouse for Strawberry Shortcake. She developed a love of lip gloss.

She didn’t want me to call her Baby Girl anymore. She was big. Big Girl.

For her forever family, she said she wanted a mom and a dad and a dog.

Her own mom and dad weren’t doing the things they were supposed to do, like completing classes in parenting and domestic violence prevention. They didn’t always show up for supervised visits, and Big Girl came home sad or mad, sometimes both.

The parents got more chances than she ever did. There were do-overs, extensions and court dates. A family expressed interest in adopting her and began overnight visits that stretched to three or four days a week. She changed schools, to one closer to their house. There was a mom and a dad and a dog and even a brother and a sister.

But several months in, they decided not to take her. That same week the court severed her parents’ legal rights to her, freeing her for adoption. Officially, she had no family. She had us. We talked about whether one of us were the right ones to adopt her but then an aunt and uncle —blood relations, not an “aunt” and “uncle” — wanted her.

They live in another state, but they spent hours talking over Facetime. She could see their dog. The aunt and uncle spent hours more on the phone with Kasey, learning all about this little person.

‘They’re the best’

warned him that he’d have to vacate once Ballerina arrived.) Kasey asked her if she had introduced me to her aunt and uncle.

“Ballerina,” she started, and then in perfect Emily Post-style, she told me their names. “This is Ballerina,” she told them.

She leaned into me and loud whispered, “Do you like them?”

“I do like them,” I told her. “Do you them?”

“They’re the best,” she said.

Our side of the family

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They are the best. The aunt brought a small photo album filled with pictures of the dog, the neighborhood, and her new bedroom, the white furniture set and bright pink bedsheets, butterflies and flower decals on the walls.

She showed her pictures of extended family, “Granny” and young cousins she’ll get to play with. They are family from her uncle’s side. The aunt doesn’t see her family, the one she shares by blood with Big Girl; there’s too much that isn’t right with them, the kinds of things that resulted in Big Girl being in foster care.

She climbed onto her aunt’s lap. She held tight.

I watched them, smiling. “I know you think you’re just getting a 4-year-old but really, you’re getting all of us,” I said. She looked around the room, at all of us. Kasey with baby Willow on her hip. Anna with her kids, Reagan and Dallas. Elliot and Virgil. She nodded. There were tears in her eyes. “You can be my side of the family,” she said.

We are her family

Everyone wore tutus to her party on Saturday, even Sawyer, though he did so grudgingly. “I hate you,” he muttered in the carport where he stepped into a black and red taffeta pouf.

Big Girl squealed when she saw him and hugged him around his legs. “I love you, Sawyer,” she told him.

The house was packed with people. “These are all the people I care about,” Big Girl said. She pulled on my hand, “Come on, Ballerina.”

The next day at the airport, her aunt and uncle flew in, and we ate lunch together before the flight that would take all three of them home.

I gave her a bag with matching pink-andpurple tutus for her and her new mom and a camouflage colored one for her dad.

She looked at the group standing around her and wiped her tears with the back of her hand. She hugged her Court Appointed Special Advocate, one more time. She took hold of her aunt’s hand and her uncle’s little finger, and they walked to the gate. She looked back twice. We watched her until we couldn’t see her anymore, all of us.

Because whatever you call us, we’re her family. Forever.