be sure to take pics of the old kitchen... with all of you in it doing normal things - for memories!

Awww too sweet - thank you for posting, and good for you for having the courage and loving heart to embrace and share your life with these kids! (I'm very sentimental too :o*) It's funny what sticks in our minds as kids. The things that I remember/love most were probably tacky and dated, but associated with them were feelings of being loved and valued. Life truly is a series of moments of joy and pain.
~Missy

Congrats on your adoptions! My kids are adopted, too.
Lisa

I didn't even think of it as I was writing this last night, but I well remember the bright solid yellow 70s modern (melamine?) trestle table I grew up with, plus the brown wall oven and cooktop and avocado green refrigerator. (I think the sink was also brown porcelain?) I have blocked out the wallpaper; must have been too traumatizing. Good thing I wasn't sentimental like DD. Mom might have kept them just to make me happy! UGH! I wonder where that table is now...

Just wanted to share my 5 year olds' comment the first day of demolition, after he came home from school. So, we're only into this 1 day and he says, when he comes in the door and sees the kitchen down to the studs. "Oh man, they aren't done with the kitchen yet???"
Oh, to have no concept of time. And, obviously, we are not sentimental about our kitchen ;-)

So sweet! Your family must have shared many good times in your old kitchen. It's amazing how children see to the heart of things and ignore the superficial. Of course, as you said, she isn't cooking in that space. You'll soon make loving family memories in your new, more efficient kitchen!

It's a very touching story, and what a great way to find out what your kids are really thinking!

I'll offer a little reassurance. The new kitchen will be home too. My parents have remodeled their house in three major ways, including my bedroom and the kitchen, and redone it in all kinds of minor ways, over many decades. Some of it happened when I was a kid, some when I was grown and out, and some while I was abroad and missed the transformation altogether. But home is home, and even when I hit culture shock returning after that year, home just looked like home.

As others have already touched on...Home (and beloved kitchen) is where you are and where you make fun and loving memories with them. Our kids have good memories of every place we've lived, and were always sad to leave...at least something about those places. But I know they wouldn't want to trade back. Your dd just can't imagine how anyplace could be any better right now, and that means you've made it a wonderful place for her. But she'll love and appreciate the new space, too...

I had the same guilt over comments the kids made about my time on the computer...and still do. I am trying to cut back, but the forum is a strong temptation! :-)

Thanks for the encouragement, plllog! You're right, I don't miss the home I grew up in. For me, home is where my family is.

The whole thing was poignant to me that she felt connected to this place, where we are. We have always treated their adoptions as a matter of fact, same as the fact that they have blue eyes or need glasses. (Lisaslists can tell you, they are no different than bio children, except we get to agree wholeheartedly when people tell us how cute they are!) It's little things like DD said that prove to me that she is thankful to be a part of our family. If I remember to include her in some of the process, it will go a long way! And she won't look back when she sees that in our new kitchen, she can participate in meal prep so much more easily!

Karen44, thanks so much for sharing your son's comment for a good laugh! And why weren't they finished yet?

desertsteph, thanks for the reminder to get a few pictures of them working in the kitchen. Better do that tomorrow... (I have plenty of them eating, just not working).

Wow! This post struck a chord with me! When I was 9, we moved to a new house. For YEARS, I missed many things about that house. One was brushing my teeth while looking out my bathroom window on a summer night and seeing the lights from Memorial Stadium and hearing the crowd, and the other, in all their 1970s glory, was the bright yellow laminate cabinets in our kitchen! My parents would ask what we missed most about the house, and would always mention those school-bus yellow cabinets!

In the "new" house- they have been there 25 years- the kitchen I grew up with is gone now too. They put on a wonderful great room addition, and the old kitchen is now essentially a butlers pantry (it was pretty small). But I loved the old kitchen, with the cobalt blue round laminate table (I think my mom must have had a thing for primary colored laminates) where my family ate dinner and breakfast together every day.

And now, with 2 children of my own, when we eat it is in the new space, and we have made many memories there as well. Your new kitchen will be special to your kids no matter what is looks like, because of WHO is in it.

rhome, I posted before I saw yours.

Thank you so much for your comments. PMS, combined with a difficult discussion w/ DH (such a good man, I am so blessed, even when we don't see eye to eye), and I can't see my screen!

You are right, it will be just as much home to her when she gets used to it, and even more so because she'll be able to be closer to me while I'm in the kitchen!

amberley, um, could it be that your cabinets were made from my table after it died, or vice-versa? School-bus yellow, that describes it perfectly!

My little boy, who is 5, shared some of the same feelings when I recently remodeled our guest room. "But I like the wallpaper with the little houses!" and that sort of thing. So I let him "help" me fix up the room and he loved it. He stripped wallpaper, sanded, primed, and was my on-the-ground helper for hanging curtains. (He did quite a good job and it held his interest for a long time.)

His favorite thing, though, was that we wrote a note and hid it inside the wall for "future owners" to find. We wrote a little bit about what was happening in the world that day, what he liked to do and what he had done to help. We should have enclosed a picture of the "before" but I didn't think of it at the time. He thought it was great and always points out the secret hiding place behind the baseboard where we tucked his note.

Latimore, that is so sweet. Maybe we can incorporate the same note thing! My kids didn't mourn the loss of the old kitchen at this house, but they do miss the old house.

Amberley, mmmmm, old Memorial Stadium (never been to the new one) Best hotdogs in the world!

Lisa

Latimore, I love that idea! I will have us do the same kind of thing, with whatever ideas they come up with (though we hope to be the owners for a long time).

We adopted our oldest also (9 yo), and I'm laughing about how you can wholeheartedly agree when people say he's cute - it's so true! When people say my bio children are cute and they look like me, I always am very happy, of course, and I say thank you, but when people say our oldest is cute, my answer is almost always, I KNOW! He's got the best hair in the family!

And congrats on the kitchen remodel too ;)

jsweenc, I didn't open this thread until today. Tell your daughter, thanks for the hug and right back at her! ;-)

When my oldest son was a baby, people often asked, "where did he get his red hair?" Half of my cousins have red hair so it never occurred to me that red hair was unusual. I must admit that I did get tired of the question - a sincere question, I'm sure, but how many times must I give the same, boring, answer to strangers? So after awhile I got creative: "L'Oreal. He's worth it" and "The mailman. Shh, don't tell my husband" were my favorites. If he'd been adopted, I think I would have answered the same way!

I doubt my boys (almost 19 and almost 17 and yes, the oldest is still red-headed) will get sentimental about our old kitchen when we finally get around to redoing it. Oh, wait, that's not quite true. I *know* they will grumble when they can't find things. They still complain about the little bit of rearranging I did 5 years ago! Get over it already. LOL

We moved often while I was growing up so I think the kitchens I'm most sentimental about aren't the ones of my childhood homes but of relatives, specifically those of 2 aunts & uncles and my maternal grandparents. One of my cousins now lives in our grandparents' home. That came up in a conversation with his sister the other day. She told me that she hasn't visited since shortly after he moved in about 10 years ago. She knows he has the right to make changes, to make it his home but she doesn't want those changes to interfere with her memories of "grandma's kitchen." I understand so well.

Oh, Lisa_a, thank you so much for writing back! She will be so tickled to hear from you!

ROFL at your answers to people's questions! I still get the question "Are they twins?" almost every day of their life. At first I said yes, if I didn't have time to share the story, but since it's a good story to share and it blesses others, I usually say no and explain. Sometimes I get the most puzzled looks, and often, "So, they're not brother and sister?", to which I say, "Yes, they are" which confounds them further. The adventure last year to get baby in the snowstorm was another incredible tale. I hope I can share it sometime, somewhere on here.

Like your cousin (the sister), the PO of our house didn't ever want to come back in to see what we had done. She had to move because of divorce; he wanted a boat with his half of the house. She loved this house and would have stayed if she could. His (her ex's) mother still lives next door and his brother right across the lake. The whole neighborhood is on what used to be their family's acreage. I hated that for her and felt a little bad for completely changing her house, but I wanted to make it my own and my tastes were different from hers.

Part of DD's entry today, her spelling (shared with her permission): "I hope they make a cababinet witch is on the ground [translation: base cabinet] to small, but just right for me. But They dcided to make it bigger and *they [*mommy & Daddy (not brother)] find me in it and made big enough for me and the pots and pans. Oh that would be fun."

We got a good laugh over us planning a cabinet just for her to hide in (one of her favorite things to do!) Anyone have any pictures of one of those?

Part of DS's entry today also shared with permission (sorry about the fuzzy quality; the scanner is being funny and I can't figure it out):
{{!gwi}}

november, DH and I both have brown eyes and all 3 kids have bright blue. Only one or two people in 11 years have asked where they got their blue eyes from. I would have thought it would be the first thing they picked up on! I'm sure yours are all beautiful!

What is it about people and asking personal and private questions about families?! After years of hearing them, I am still amazed at what very private things people will ask me and the assumptions they'll make about us and our 8 children (who are not necessarily carbon copies of each other or us)...Religion, marital situation (number of dads, adopted or not), birth control and comments about sex... Yikes.

I agree whole-heartedly that if the kids help and have input into the new choices it will help it become theirs...and more special to you in the long run, too. There were certain things or places in the house I just handed over to a kid and let it be theirs. They each put a lot of care into their decisions and even though different than I might have chosen, still something I like very much...and in some cases, I admit that their choices were nicer, probably because they didn't overthink them as much as I would have. I loved it when someone (Maddiesmom?) was considering painting her island "Kermit green" because that's what her 4 yr old chose. Things can always be repainted...

rhome, it is amazing what people feel entitled to know about other people's lives. No boundaries, especially when it comes to something that is out of the norm. Like having eight children...!!! I can imagine the curiosity. My brother has 8 (ages 15 down to 6 mos.), and though I've never heard him say, I"m sure they get questions all the time. (Like "Are ALL of those yours?!?") I do know that they get plenty of stares when they are out.

I smiled big at Kermit the Frog green. Yes, you can always paint, but... I think I'll confine that to their rooms, at least for now, and have the kitchen the way I want it.

I'll guess that you are huge help to your kids who need furniture arrangement advice, when they ask!

I've noticed that when people are having trouble identifying and processing what they see, they'll say or do something--anything. If you're wearing the world's weirdest shoes they'll compliment them because they don't know what to say. If they see a largely pregnant woman, they'll touch her--without permission. And they'll ask rude questions about people's kids because they're trying to create a context for understanding what they're seeing and don't have enough data--and are too silly to make something up in their heads and bite their tongues. I love Lisa's responses.

Glad my silliness made you all smile.

plllog, I think you got it spot on. People seek context or connection and their first reactions don't always go through the filtering process before revealed in word or action. I think reactions are exaggerated even more if a situation is out of the norm for them.

Many years ago, a group of us were chatting at work. Without any preamble, a co-worker announced that when she was a little girl, her grandmother committed suicide. It was a shocking revelation that had nothing to do with the conversation and my reaction reflected my surprise. I laughed. I immediately apologized for my inappropriate reaction (she accepted). I try to remember this and have patience but still, there are times when someone says or does something that begs the question: What were you thinking?!

Love the journal entries, jsweenc!

In spite of what I said, I really don't mind the questions about the children and their adoptions. It's an opportunity, as I said, to use their lives to bless others, which is one of our primary prayers for them. Even at 12 months, our baby is blessing others because of her story!

However, we have all been in the position of foot-in-mouth and wish we could turn back the clock. It is human nature, but your apology probably went a long way.

I promise I won't turn this into a blog for my children's thoughts on kitchen renovation!

jsweenc, we did the same thing latimore suggested and prepared a time capsule to put in the walls. We're also going to re-entomb the treasures we found during the demo (our house turns 100 this year). ;o)

8 of our kids were adopted (Haiti, China, Ethiopia), so I understand the care that must be taken not to mess with their worlds too much. Even a positive thing like a kitchen remodel can stir up emotions.

I'll guess that you are huge help to your kids who need furniture arrangement advice, when they ask!

I probably wasn't very clear...I meant that when we built our house, I let my 15 yo dd pick the tile, counter, and overall color scheme for the bathroom that she, her sisters, and one brother would use. Our 10 yo dd chose the tile for our entry 'rug' and also was a big help with kitchen tile choices. Our oldest chose paint and lighting for the library and main bath. The boys had input, too, just weren't as interested in much more than their own rooms, which they did participate in. If someone had a strong opinion about something I was ambivalent or undecided about, I went with their choice, so that it was everyone's house, not just Mom's. (took off some of the responsibility, too!) I was along side them every step of the way, of course, but they weren't doing anything too wild (no Kermit green), so it worked.

Maddiesmom had a very colorful kitchen, so the green was an OK choice for them.

I"m sure they get questions all the time. (Like "Are ALL of those yours?!?"

Sometimes when I'm out with only 4 or 6 of our kids, someone will ask, "Are those all your kids?" They expect 'yes' or 'no,' but the way they've asked allows me to smile and say, "No, there are 2 (or 4) more at home!"

If your brother's oldest is a girl, there are those who probably think the baby is hers...That happened to my dd, who was 16 when our youngest was born...Several times, even though I was the one carrying the baby. My dd was most upset that they thought she was such a bad mother as to not be holding her own child. ;-) And I wasn't thrilled to be taken as his grandmother either...

Yes, worldmom, especially when they are older when you adopt them. Since ours were all babies, our issues are mostly normal kid stuff, but I have many many friends who have adopted older children.

Rhome, I totally misread what you wrote! There were certain things or places in the house I just handed over to a kid and let it be theirs. I read "I just now gave a kid the house and there were certain things he wanted to change in it that I would have chosen differently" instead of "I simply gave each kid some choices". If I hadn't stayed up so late last night, I would have been able to get it! : )

LOL about being a grandmother -- I wouldn't want to hear that either. DH turned 50 the day before baby was born (I am MUCH younger than he). One of his fears in adopting her was that he was "so old". He looks much closer to 40, and only one person (same age as DH) so far has accused him of being the grandpa.

Tore my heart. We sold the home where we married and I home-birthed both kids... so we cold do a whole house renovation in a neighborhood with better schools. The kids (much younger than yours) LOVE the temporary apartment. I am shocked- but so relieved. We just tried to get them excited about it from the beginning... although the 3 year old recently saw a photo of the old house and said, "I want to go there, Mommy."

Honor the loss and let them get involved in the new kitchen!

Tore my heart. We sold the home where we married and I home-birthed both kids... so we cold do a whole house renovation in a neighborhood with better schools. The kids (much younger than yours) LOVE the temporary apartment. I am shocked- but so relieved. We just tried to get them excited about it from the beginning... although the 3 year old recently saw a photo of the old house and said, "I want to go there, Mommy."

Honor the loss and let them get involved in the new kitchen!

midwifekim, thanks for your thoughts. I will definitely try to do that! I'm glad yours like the apartment for now; makes it so much easier! They will also be right at home in the new house too!

worldmom, forgot to add, when we tore down a 200-yo house we bought for DH's office (unfixable), we found lots of things in the walls and shed and more. The best was the report cards of the kids who lived there at the time, 1940s I think. Obviously the grades weren't stellar! DH took them to the family to whom the house belonged for many years, and they graciously gave them back to him. He now has many of the items in a tasteful display in his reception room, along with using salvaged building materials from the house for the floor and some walls and lintels.