Personalized imprints

I'm in decision mode. It's now August and in between camping trips I'm usually getting ready for back to school. Every year I spend two days in the States purchasing clothing and shoes for our children. The clothing in Canada has become comparable although the running shoes still are expensive. I've been searching for online sites to order instead....online ordering seems to be the new shopping experience. Since I started homeschooling, I've been online ordering for over a year now. The other day I stumbled across a site that you can customize your own clothing. That was fun. All our children are getting their own shirt with their names on it. What's nice about personalizing and especially for our children it gives them the sense of stability and ownership within our family. Having "Hohnstein" on their own shirts signifies their place in their new family. Every time we adopt a child, we celebrate and their gift is their own shirt representing them and their new name. It can take years for a child to feel stable within a new family, and any little detail can either disrupt their hopes or help them realize they're here to stay. Personalized clothing is a great idea, photographs on your wall should be done instantly especially if your family is already placed there. I've also been in the process of making all our children their own albums. All our children when they're adults will receive their own childhood albums. Recently our oldest son, also he's our first and oldest adoption returned to his childhood home town. The town we adopted him from. He was suggesting he might go back and live there. He returned within one week. He explained to me that it's not the same, the town that he once knew, where all his childhood memories reside, where his childhood friends still exist have changed. It's not his home. He went back to the hotel where we had our pre-placement visits, and that's where he remembered good memories. The beginning of his new life and family. It was a "Awe" moment for me. It was just before his twelfth birthday when he came home, it was a rocky road from the beginning......then even rockier during his teen years. Now he's turning twenty and after nine years of being our son, after searching out his birth family, returning to his childhood home; his recognition of his place in this world is us. That's adoption. From the beginning of placement, throughout the years of questions of who am I? Where is my place within this world? To seeking....and realizing that his adopted family is the one that committed and dedicated themselves putting that shirt on his back. It's the reassurance from day one that even when he wasn't sure, or didn't want to be our son, that he was anyway. I'm referring to our oldest son because he's now twenty years old. We accomplished establishing attachment with attachment disorder labels, we adopted an older child with major trials and tribulations within his past history. And we didn't succeed because of a personalized shirt, I learned when during the hard times to still be his mother from a far. I constantly reminded him that he's my son if he liked it or not, that he can make his choices, even go on with his life but it doesn't change the fact we picked him and he's always a personalized "Hohnstein" I sure do love him....he's come a long way. He might not know this, but he helped me......I learned while parenting him on how to hopefully successfully parent the rest of our children. Something every parent should know. A. It's not about you. B. Let your adolescent learn from their own choices. C. If they seek, be there for when they return - very important (they're your child) D. Forgive and move on. E. Remember, you're not alone, there is hundreds of families with challenges - seek your own support. To conclude, raising children is not easy, raising teenagers is crazy, having compassionate, respectful adult children is what I see successful at the end of it. If it does not "feel" successful, remember you did the best you could and you won't be forgotten because you were a part of your child's life, a stepping stone that they will remember. That's still a personalized imprint you made as their parent. My thoughts for today........