We Just Don't Know What to Do

Some of you may be wondering about Tam. (Thang - um, Tam is just easier, and it doesn't make me think about my college theater troupe members accusing eachother of "acting like "Miss Thang" (rhymes with twang) when they were ticked at eachother.)

Okay. Tam. Tam appears to be a very sweet little boy. He will be five in a few months. He is exactly 18 months younger than Gabriel.

One other family is interested in Tam, but, they have not yet decided if they want to formally request him.

If Husband and I decide to formally ask for him, this will force the other family to make a decision - they will have to "fish or cut bait" as it were. However, our agency hasn't specified exactly how much time they will give the other family to make that decision. They've had the file for "several weeks" though. We have only had the file since Thursday.

When we got the previous file, on C~ H~ Dung, I really felt that, within a few days, I was in love with that little boy. I stared at his pictures. I carried his file with me everywhere - from church to work to family and friends homes. I was so certain he was meant to be my son.

And when he was given to the other family, my heart was broken. Crushed. Smushed.

So, now I am looking at the file of this little boy, who is about 18 months older than that other child, and 18 months younger than my little boy Gabe.

And I feel very clinical about the whole thing. He sounds like a sweet boy. He is a handsome child. He is EXTREMELY attached to his foster mother and to another child who is fostered with him.

He is smart, and he has admirable qualities. (For example, he defends his foster sister if other children pick on her. He makes friends with adults in his neighborhood and goes to visit them after school or on Sundays. He asks about his foster mother's health when she is ill and won't leave her side if she is really sick. He convinced his foster mother to buy him a bicycle and is training himself to ride it. TRAINING HIMSELF TO RIDE IT.) I think these would be admirable qualities in a ten year old, heck, in a 25 year old. I find them remarkable in a four year old child who was abandoned by his mother and raised in an orphanage and then in a foster home.

I suspect this little boy has a strong will and a fighting spirit.

He is not the toddler I have been thinking about. (But, really, when I started this process I thought I was going to end up a little girl from China, so, honestly, my expectations are all out the window anyway.)

He is not C~ H~ Dung. (But, that child is not ever going to be mine. As much as it hurt, that child is not ever going to be mine.)

I'm just not sure how to proceed. Is that fact that I didn't immediately fall in love with this child a product of the fact that I was so so so badly burned by being denied C~ H~ Dung, and I am not going to let that happen again until I am sure that I can bring him home? Or is it because he is just not meant to be mine?

LM