Today we have a big surprise, as we introduce you to our outside kids! It’s DID Awareness Day, and one of the most common questions is how someone with DID can parent. But parenting is actually really important to us, and keeping our children safe is very important to us. The outside children introduce themselves by age, and share what they like (and don’t like) about our family. They talk about life before adoption, and each shares one hard memory as an example of how life was different (so please consider that as a trigger warning). They sing “Journey to the Past” (from the “Anastasia”) movie, talk about big feelings, and sing one of the songs The Husband wrote them to help process big feelings. The older kids can’t talk about big feelings without also talking about puberty, and there’s a song for that, too! The kids cover all kinds of issues, from foster care to friendship, from online safety to why sharing our family story is important to us, and how we do it safely. They also have a really good discussion about why it’s important to talk about hard things with safe people, and how it impacts us if we don’t have safe people. It’s a conversation starter for the dissociation explanation, even if foundational rather than explicit. The children focus at first on their own experiences, then Emma’s, but then process using the story of a boy at our hotel - whom we are pretty sure stole our wallet. That leads to a discussion of safety issues - and some of their issues are pretty big and direct because of previous experiences they have been through prior to adoption. It’s a fairly frank and direct discussion of the issues, and about why we need each other, and how we are learning together. It’s an intense discussion that very much reflects everyday of our life! Parenting well and intentionally takes time and energy, but is worth every precious moment.