"Not his real daughter"

My sister often says my youngest daughter looks like Shiloh Jolie Pitt, youngest daughter of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt (at least until those twins come along). I was surfing the net and found pictures of Shiloh when she was turning one to compare to Jenna. There is quite a resemblance and she is almost exactly a year older than my daughter.

Anyway, I mention it to my mother in law and she says "You mean Brad Pitt's real daughter, not the adopted one". That really irked me. Hello! All Brad and Angelina's kids are real-you can see them, touch them and play with them. I guess she meant biological, but the way it came out gave me the impression that the children that were adopted aren't real. I know that's an underlying factor in her thinking. My husband has a cousin who was adopted and she told her sons "that's not REALLY your cousin". Well when they played together, spent holidays together and were raised as cousins-they were cousins-blood related or not. For years my husband and his brother never knew. What difference did it make?? It's the love, not the blood that bonds.

Do they offer adoption education classes for family members? I have a few I could sign up!!! Anyway, here's Shiloh (with her Mom and Z) just around the time she turned one:






















Here's a recent picture of Jenna: