T is a celebrity.
Well. He is a celebrity of sorts in our neighbourhood.
As mentioned previously, last spring/summer/fall, T and his daddy spent almost every late afternoon/early evening at our neighbourhood park.
And then. People who were strangers to me would call to T from across the street while walking by our house. I would finally figure out that these were park parents and kids. That made sense to me.
On T's first day of preschool, located in our neighbourhood, he was greeted by a parent I have never seen or heard of. He was greeted. Not me. When I gave her a questioning look, she explained something about knowing so-and-so who played at the park this summer.
That was when I started to realize that our family has a bit of a celebrity status in our small community. We live in a predominantly white neighbourhood. Our city is diverse but our local area isn't. T has multiple friends of color and we have sought out other environments that are diverse, but here, in our neighbourhood, he is noticed.
The way people notice him and us isn't in a negative way. People are all very kind and polite. It helps that T is quite the looker and has a fun out-going personality when around other kids. But it kind of bugs me. It's the idea that people think they know him and us because the way our family looks stands out.
T is too young to figure out his stardom. I'm imagining some interesting conversations in our future about this. And I wonder what this summer at the park will be like as T's baby sister toddles after him. Because we are now one of "those" families, who has a bio kid after an adoption, which makes us stand out even more.
I'm just glad T is an easy-going kid and doesn't let too much get to him. Right now, he'll just bask in the pure joy of having a bunch of kids happy to see him and go play.
