Yet Another Challenge of Parenting

I was looking at lots of pictures the other day for Zeke's birthday blog post. I was again thankful that we have loving biological relatives that have provided the boys with pictures of when they were little. I still remember when Riley needed to make a poster of himself for school a few years ago and we didn't have any pictures of him younger than age 4.
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Anyway, in looking through pictures, I found one of Riley (19mo), Zeke (8months) and their biological mom and dad. They all looked so young. I brought Riley in by himself and let him look at the picture because he's always so curious. He looked for a few minutes and we talked about the people in the picture. We discussed how his mom, in the picture, was only 5 years older than Brittney is now. Riley shared some of his memories of his parents and about things that happened to Zeke and Anthony. I hesitate to share the specifics here on the blog because those are Riley's thoughts and memories, not mine. If he wants to share them with the world someday, he can.
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It's heart-wrenching to watch him struggle with his feelings about his other family. I told him it's ok to still love someone but not like what they do. We talked about people making really bad choices but still being able to make better choices later in life if they chose to. We talked about my biological family and the similarities Riley and I have. I asked him if he wanted to call Grandma Lori or Aunt Brooke (so that he could have that biological connection for a few minutes). He looked up at me with his sad little face and replied, "Not in THIS mood!"
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I watched silent tears run down his face. After talking for quite a while, he asked quietly, "Why can I just have a normal family like everyone else?"
I had tears running down my face as I replied with the only answer I had, "Sometimes I wish the same thing Riley."
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