I Love You Like Crazy Cakes by Rose Lewis holds special meaning for me. It's on a high shelf in my daughter's room, only pulled down once in a while. So when I saw Every Year On Your Birthday by the same author in a bookstore a few months ago, I knew I had to read it.
For those who are not aware, I'm an adoptive mother. My daughter was not adopted internationally, as the author's daughter was, but there are still so many of the same themes in her books of the thoughts and feelings you might have as an adoptive family.
In Every Year On Your Birthday, the author remembers each of her daughter's first five birthdays, and recalls the special events that happened on each of those days.
In between, she mixes in "flashbacks" almost of where her daughter came from, what her heritage is, and the hopes she has for her daughter's first family.
As in Crazy Cakes, the last page could easily make me cry. Mom and daughter think about her first family. As a mommy through adoption, I so want my daughter to know that it's okay and good and normal to wonder about her heritage, and that it's a "safe" topic in this house. I don't ever want her to feel like she can't ask a question she has, and while hers is an open adoption, there will still be questions someday as she makes sense of everything in her own mind. I hope that reading books such as these, and just making the topic available to her, will help set the tone for future conversations, and let her know that we as her parents love her exactly the way she is, no matter what.
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