To Tell Or Not To Tell. That Was Our Question

Our Ben was Star Of The Week this week in his little Kindergarten class. He has been BEAMING and LOVING it! He talks about being first in line, and getting to dismiss the rows and it is neat to see him feel so special. He was the second to last student to be Star Of the Week, so he has had all year of watching the others get to be the Star and was really ready to be it himself.
Ben is our first one to start school. At the beginning of the school year, Dan and I wondered about how and when and how much to share about his adoption. We felt the teacher needed to know that he was adopted. Just the basics, so that if the topic came up she would know that he was adopted and be able to handle it with the correct information. We decided to let the rest play out on its own. 
Last week the teacher gave me all the information we needed for Star of The Week and she asked if we wanted to share about his adoption. I told her we would leave that up to Ben and see what he was comfortable with.  
What we want is for the children to feel good about their adoption, to have pride in how God made our family, but to not be defined by it. To have a healthy balance. To know they are special and God  loves them, but that there is SO much more to them than just being adopted. 
At home while going through the "tell us about your family" part I asked Ben if he wanted to share about being adopted or not. He looked up at me with big wide eyes and a big smile and said "YEAH!!!!!"  So when it was time to pick out pictures, he picked some from his adoption day. I was happy to see how proud he is of his story, but wondered how it would be explaining it and sharing with his peers. This would be a first. I wondered if there would be questions from the other children, and how Ben would feel about the questions. So far, he has only had supportive, positive things said to him about his adoption. To him, it is just normal. But for his classmate it will be something new and different than what they know. (he is the only student in his class that has been adopted)
When I picked him up from school I was anxious to ask him how sharing went. But was pretty much shot down. You see he is MALE. ALL MALE. So to him there is no need for details or talking in depth about what everyone said and if they had  any questions. (this IS how Hannah will be for sure. I bet she will even tell me what kind of shoes each person was wearing! ) So pretty much all I could get from Ben was that it was AWESOME sharing and that he told everyone he was an Indian. It seemed to have gone well, but I am a female and wanted details :)   So the next day I asked the teacher how it went sharing about his adoption. She said he did great and that he was completely comfortable sharing. She said that when he shared the picture of adoption day standing with the judge, one of the students asked "what that big black thing in the middle was", and she told him it was the robe that judges wear. She said they wanted to know what the Judge did and she explained that she signed a paper that said Ben would be in our family forever. That was the extent of the questions. I am so glad it went so well. I am more glad that my boy was comfortable sharing about his adoption and not afraid to. But I am also glad that it has not been all about his adoption all year. That we let it play out the way Ben was comfortable with. I know as he gets older it may change and he may go back and forth with how much he wants to share if he wants to at all. But for his first time sharing with peers. I am super glad it was positive and great for him. 

On a funny note,  when the teacher read his full name including his middle name which is Sioux,   he said "thats my name because I am an Indian...I can't remember right now what kind of indian I am, but I am an indian". The teacher then said "well I think you might be a Sioux indian, does that sound right?" Ben answered "YEAH THATS IT!!!!!"  LOL.  I am so glad I asked his teacher for the details!!!