Raising Devils

One Year

Saturday, September 4th, 2010 | Connecting the Dots | 4 Comments

One year.

Actually, one year and 2 months.

I didn’t think a year meant that much, once we hit that year. I’m just not feeling the milestone, I said. This is still hard, it still doesn’t feel worthy of some sort of “this-is-how-we-were-meant-to-be” record. I suspect that maybe isn’t my style, anyway…that this is how we are will always be what’s important to me… But thatsnnot my point. We’ve hit our stride, I feel–as I said a few days ago, everything feels more established and more settled now than ever before. And I realized, yesterday at Rory’s annual physical, that “one year” is a big part of why.

“One year” isn’t really just some arbitrary anniversary. It’s how we, culturally, seasonally, naturally, divvy up our own lives. Every year the snow will fall, every year the days will get longer, every year the raspberries will ripen and the apples will fill the trees and the pumpkins will be ready to pick. School will start, doctor’s visits will happen, birthdays, annual festivals…we structure a million and one things around an annual calendar, and for Rory and the rest of us together, all of those things will now have happened before. Wemhave entered the great and wonderful stage where nearly everything is “just like last time.”

I don’t think you can underestimate the value of that for someone who, once, when things took a turn for the seriously different from everything that had ever before happened, found herself with a new life, family, hiiom, language and nearly every thing you can think of. Rory is a lesson who naturally leaps into new adventures, and for her to have been so overwhelmed by one really took a toll on her personality. Now, new adventures are easier to welcome because they come in the context of things that have happened before. New people may come visit, but then they will leave, and next weekend we will go to the same party we went to for Labor Day last year. There may be a new teacher, but the classroom and most of the kids and the routine will be the same. She can wear new shoes with an old pair of shorts.

That seems to make everything much better, and suddenly, really truly suddenly, everything isn’t just striding, it’s going rather smoothly. You fight less with your siblings when you have that year base to fall back on. You’re more able to come up with simpler ways to deal with moments when you can see that you will not possibly get your way. Sure, your friend has to leave, but instead of crying or getting yourself into a temper tantrum worth of trouble over it, maybe you could just insist on holding the dog so she doesn’t chase your friend’s car.

From my point of view, we’ve left the realm of “what will she do next.” At last year’s physical, our pediatrician tactfully told me a story about an adoptive parent she knew who felt like she was too hard on her child. “she really had to be, sometimes,” the doctor said, “because if a child she’d known all its life gave another child a push inbfrustration, she knew how far the kid would go next, but with the newer child, she just didn’t know, so she had to be much more responsive and careful abo ut everything.”

That turned out to be very true, and very comforting. But now, for the most part, I do know. Which in many cases doesn’t mean I can be less vigilant, but in many cases it does. I do know Rory, now. I know where she’s going and what she’s likely to do next and whether I need to head her off at the pass. It’s a good, and much easier, feeling.

Without wishing our lives away, I can see the next milestone–the moment when she’s lived longer with us than anywhere else–coming, and again, I can see why it’s not just some arbitrary marker, but a moment with real and deep resonance. These anniversaries mean something more that cakes and candles. They speak to something deeper inside us, the movement of time and seasons that binds us together.

So, in short, one year: now I get it.

Tags: "china adoption", adoption blog, china adoption blog, chinese adoption, waiting child adoption

Stride.

Wednesday, August 18th, 2010 | Connecting the Dots | 3 Comments

We have hit our stride.
Rory has been home for almost 14 months, and it’s time to call it good. And oh, it is such a relief.

The past year been like hitting my head against a wall, in that it’s so much better now that it’s stopped. I’ve never, ever been so glad that a year was over, and I would repeat sixth grade before I’d live through the first six months again. Of course, we had our beautiful moments. Of course, it’s always tough to see calendar pages flip, and I’m always telling myself not to “wish my life away.” But it has been a tough year, and that’s putting it mildly. And suddenly, with little fanfare, it seems to be over. Last month I posted to No Hands But Ours about how I wasn’t ready to do the squishy lovey one year post. If this month were our one year marker, I’d be more inclined, although I still resist putting a rosy haze over the changes any of us went through last year. I can’t imagine our lives without Rory now, although sometimes I still do. (I also sometimes contemplate what life would be like with Sam as only child, or with Sam and Lily as a tanned and tow-headed pair of co-conspirators, a role they took on tonight when Wyatt and Rory went off to do some twin thing in the playroom. It’s not personal. It’s just one of those things.)

Things that felt impossible six months ago, like taking all of the kids to the swimming pool without another adult, or the three youngest to a bead store for a little craft action, today manage to seem like good ideas. (Although there are some situations, like kid concerts, that I still avoid like the plague. I can’t see any possible way that would be fun.) The house is cleaner, our lives slightly more organized. We buy milk in glass returnable bottles, and the process of returning the empties no longer strikes me as the straw that might break the camel’s back. In fact, I broke two full ones the other day (it was bound to happen) and dealt with the result with far more equanimity than I would ever have expected of myself. We make plans. We look ahead. We sit at home, and I periodically actually sit down on the couch with a magazine without anyone on my lap.

On the Rory herself front, too, we’ve made one of those startling leaps. Her language suddenly shot up to a level where she feels she can talk to other people, outside people, even people she has never met (whom she really likes to tell that she is from China, and rarely fails to ask if they know Baba Mike, her foster dad). She chats with us about all sorts of things, about how she feels and what she thinks and what she did and will do today (all of which she avoided before). Lest you think it’s perfection, very few people can actually understand her, and she’s still got a weird sort of noun fatigue, with little gaps of common words simply not finding a place in her head (like sausage and soup, which she forgot yesterday). She handles the gaps so much better, though. “I don’ know what that is,” she’ll say. Tonight she turned to me from the kitchen counter and declared that she wanted to make “a nakkin.” You can have a napkin, I said, and reached for one. “NO! I wan’ make a nakkin!” Well, I said, you can make a nakkin, here’s the paper towels. “No! NO! A NAKKIN! A NAKKIN TO GO ROUND MY NECK!” I was still obtuse (she often makes these sort of napkin bibs for herself or for dolls) and she was near tears. “It’s ok,” I said. “Stop. Breathe. We’ll figure it out.” And she actually did stop, and hold back the howls of frustration I could see right on the edge, and I looked at her, and what she had, and what she was doing, and I said “oh! a necklace! You want to make a necklace with your beads!”

Which was what she wanted to do, and then sat and did, very calmly and very well, too, considering that she made the beads at art class and I never, ever thought she would get the tiny thread through the tiny holes. Of course. A nakkin. We had another, similar near breakdown a few nights ago, when we had guests (which is always tough on Rory). She wanted a tub, she kept repeating it, getting angrier and angrier and more and more determined. It was 9:30, there would be no tub and I was getting frustrated, how could i make her see that there could be no tub and not have her loose it so badly that we might as well have just had the tub, because it would take less time? And just as I was getting my stubborn reared up and ready to go, (and pretty much matching her and forcing us both into a standoff) she stopped, thought, and said, “then I have tub tomorrow?”

Well, yeah, sure. You have tub tomorrow. Situation defused by Rory, who might, at that moment, have been more mature than I was (but note how she found a way to control it, too. I think that’s ok). She’s come far, and all of a sudden, it shows. We both have. I know it was gradual, but it has a way of feeling sudden, as if someone quite quickly uprighted our household snow globe, and things were settling gently into place.

Cross-posted to No Hands But Ours, click picture at left.

Tags: "china adoption", adoption blog, chinese adoption, parenting blog, special needs adoption

And We Thought Our Trip to China was Bad

Sunday, August 9th, 2009 | Connecting the Dots | 1 Comment

Imagine if we’d had to leave without Rory. It just happened, to this family. Here, in a nutshell, is the United States’ new plan for China adoptions:
1. Complete masses of paperwork. Travel to China. Adopt and become responsible for child.
2. Have child tested for TB.
3. If child tests positive for TB, stay in China for 2-6 months, as child will not be allowed to travel to the US, but is no longer the responsibility of anyone in China. Can’t stay–what, you have a job or family or responsibilities? Silly you. But that’s your problem. Maybe you can find some nice Chinese family to take her in–because it’s not like she hasn’t been through enough already.

Infuriating? Why, yes. Especially when you note that people all over the world are getting visas to visit the US without any kind of TB testing at all–including people from China–and that the biological child of two US parents, even with known TB, would be allowed to travel home from China without comment.

Look, nobody wants more TB in the US. But just as clearly, no one thought this law–which went into effect July 1–through. What, exactly, is this family supposed to do?

Tags: "china adoption"

Re-entry: Not Pretty

Friday, July 10th, 2009 | Connecting the Dots | 9 Comments

Some of my publishable thoughts on arriving home: Whoa. We got in at 11:00 night before last and the kids were up until 3. We hauled them through yesterday, even taking Sam and Lily to a tennis lesson and getting the boys a haircut–and put them to bed at a relatively normal time (when Rob and I were nearly asleep standing) but at 1:30 the first of them–Rory–appeared.

And this is where the fact that they all sleep in the same room bites us in the ass, because although I get her to go back to bed, Wyatt wakes up soon after and awakens everyone with his screaming, and it all goes downhill from there in a big way. Only Sam, who came down and slept on the sofa, got anything like a normal night’s sleep.

At 4:30 we let them get up and trash the house while we went to sleep. I woke up at 7:30 feeling like it was non. All night I dreamt of China, chaotic airports, crazed shopping, chasing kids through hotels. I woke up and inhaled a panful of brownies one of our friends baked us last night. So I’m doing fab.

Rory fell asleep midafternoon and had to be woken up using the kind of cruel behavior (turning them upside-down, standing them up even though they are asleep) that forms a parent’s only revenge for sleepless night, but because we were in public, I couldn’t really appreciate it. Which reminds me of the glorious moment in the airport where she whacked Wyatt full in the face for nothing–as in, he walked up to her and she hauled off and belted him–and she had to be removed, screaming, to a corner until she became willing to apologize, which took about 20 solid minutes of screaming. (We do cut her plenty of slack, but there are a couple of non-negotiables, don’t you think?) Anyway, the stares were impressive. At least she was screaming in English, which gave us some credibility…

We’ve also had a couple of episodes where she’s been with Rob, howling for “mama”–and although that’s fine, we don’t let her get away with it if she’s hitting him and refusing his help for something because she wants me–and when she finally gets me, it’s clear that I am NOT the mama she had in mind. This is hard for all of us…but mostly she’s doing remarkably well.

I am doing slightly less well. I am not a patient person at the best of times, and I become particularly unpleasant with lack of sleep. I’m also not very playful anymore, I find. I do not want to play Wii with Wyatt, or play with blocks or the remote control train with Rory, which makes me feel like all I do is dress them, feed them and say “no” to them…and I am not sure I really truly considered the ramifications of one more voice crying mommy mommy mommy in our particular wilderness.

I’ve resented every new child in turn for taking me away from the old ones. There are elements of that here–Wyatt, in particular,needs me badly every time Rory does, and saying no to him is heartbreaking. And there is just the added drudgery. Look, more toys on the floor! Look, more sippy cups! Look, more laundry! Oh, boy, somebody else who needs me to wipe their ass! I’m intensely aware that some of the people who are reading this “told me so”, and that others will be worried that I can’t meet Rory’s needs or learn to love her. I think it will all loosen up in a matter of months or even weeks. I think it will be fine, even great, fairly soon. But I don’t want to minimize or hide the growing pains. Wyatt screamed hysterically last night because he wanted me to remove this baby doll from his bed–a doll with Asian features, that we bought partly in order just not to have a whole house full of blue-eyed blondes. And when she’s the one causing the bedtime and wake up issues. I boil over. Lily gets frustrated because Rory’s not exactly what she pictured–which, as it amounted to a fully cooperative live doll, isn’t too surprising. Only Sam seems fine, and we all know that Sam has a lot of himself invested in always seeming fine.

We’ll get through it. But probably not today.

Tags: "china adoption", adopting, travel with kids

The Red Couch

Tuesday, July 7th, 2009 | Connecting the Dots | 7 Comments

What is wrong with that child, you ask? What are you people doing to her?

Well, it’s like this. If Rory has one single, stand-out, non-endearing trait, it is (and this is SO PETTY) that she pretty much has to go potty every single solitary second of every day. Is she nervous? Unable to complete, shall we say, with relative strangers? Does she have a UTI? Dunno. Doesn’t, in the context of getting out of China, matter. But there it is, and 80-100 times a day we experience the wonder and glory that is the Chinese public toilet. And if there is one particular activity that really, truly makes Rory have to go potty, it is eating, which is of necessity done in restaurants. (And if there is one thing that really really makes Rory have to go potty, it is the arrival of any form of hot food in a restaurant, in particular hot food that her Mama had planned on say, eating. This particular thing makes Rory have to go potty two or three times, all in a row, until the food has congealed and become particularly unpleasant. I had thought the quarantine diet particularly effective, but quarantine had nothing on Rory. But I digress, and I should stop, because there is really nothing I could say on this subject that would make you like me any better, because to be honest I really really feel quite petty and resentful about it, because I am often hungry at mealtimes. I will note that Lily did the same thing for several months, and I didn’t kill her, so there is that.)

Anyway. We had 20 minutes to eat lunch before our all-important, cannot be late consulate appointment. We had arrived at the deli. We had acquired our bizarre bread items–a pizza-like thing, and puffy bread containing things like a hot dog, or red bean paste, or hame and cheese. I had opened and strawed and fussed and napkined and generally got everyone settled and was just about to take an actual bite of my actual lunch when…

Well, Rob took her, since he’d eaten what he wanted of his weird bread-y thing while I did the whole opening and strawing and etc. thing. But they had to go back into the hotel, and we were nearly out of time, and Rory couldn’t come back to finish her lunch. And she was mad. And about to fall asleep, which she did, and slept right up until the consulate appt, where she woke up quite cheerful and pretty ready to enjoy everything–except that she had to go potty.

(Some of my resentment of this isn’t Rory’s fault. A) if she has to go, inevitably Lily or Wyatt, or both, will too–often not at the same time, but instead just after, prolonging the whole experience and B) there are some nasty, nasty bathrooms here, and the circumstances of their use frequently result in one or the other of the children peeing on my shoes.)

Ok, so all is rosy other than that, right? Pretty much not to bad mostly. I will tell you, first, of the things that are making life difficult. There’s Rory’s habit of knocking over pregnant mothers, toddlers and the elderly in her mad rush to be the one to push the elevator button–and I am not kidding or exaggerating. Picture a drunk on a steamroller plowing through the crowd and you’ll get the general idea. It’s maddening, because respectable public behavior has always been something we’ve tried to insist on–I know, I know, petty again. There’s the screaming like she’s been shot when Wyatt pokes her with a finger. (The poking isn’t really endearing poor Wyatt to me, either.) There’s the slapping of my mother’s hands and the scream of “no i can DO it” when my mom tries to open her orange drink (and no, Rory can’t do it. At least she couldn’t yesterday, or the day before, or the day before that–and I don’t mind her trying, I mind her hitting my mom.)

But really–minor. SO minor. It doesn’t always feel minor, and I assure you that the level of frustration the bathroom thing is causing for me is really not pretty, but so minor. She figured out how to swim today, to Rob, from the steps. She and Wy played happily in the tub for an hour, very much together. She loves Sam and draws him pictures again and again. She has this bright-eyed way of saying look what I did–want to see me do it? Do you want to? Which is so hopeful and so reminds me of the family she’s lost. It’s clear that there was always someone who wanted to see her “do it”–whether it was drawing a circle or swimming. She proudly described her whole day to my dad on skype. She tried to put herself to bed, because if Sam was going to sleep, she was too, but not without Lily!

This is harder and easier and wholly just a new thing. Tomorrow: a 14 hour plane ride. Hey, at least there’s a potty.

Tags: "china adoption", Travel to China!, travel with kids

Shamian Island: The Home Stretch

Saturday, July 4th, 2009 | Connecting the Dots | 4 Comments

Shamian Island is best described as the place the British took over, back when tea and opium were in constant traffic across the sea, and although I am sure there was razing and looting involved in its creation, the result is extraordinarily pleasant. Shady verandas. Palm trees. Wide park-like walkways. Few cars. We are staying at the White Swan. It used to be right next to the consulate, so everyone stayed here. Now it’s right next to an entire cottage industry surrounding adoption, so even though the consulate has moved, everyone…stays here anyway. There are about 4000 adoptions from China every year. Figure, then, on about 40 a week. Probably more than half in this hotel. It’s a little…weird.

But good, because no one stares, and people in general speak some English, and everyone wants to help, especially if you might buy something. Instead, we got someone to take us out into the city for our shopping.

It was CRAZY. Everything you have ever considered buying, anywhere, especially Walmart, wholesale. all piled together, everywhere. Every toy, every hairclip, every bag, every clock…everywhere you looked, more stuff. On the one hand, we wanted to scoop up everything. On the other, the sheer magnitude was overwhelming. Some things I already wish I’d bought more of–hello kitty, on the other hand, I wish we’d bought rather less. We enjoyed it, though, except for Rory, who thought we were going for ice cream.

Tags: "china adoption", Travel to China!, travel with kids

A Day in Fuzhou

Wednesday, July 1st, 2009 | Connecting the Dots | 1 Comment

So we’ve agreed: Fuzhou, not set up for tourists. On the other hand, we are seeing a real China city, and not just one like Beijing that’s sort of set up to show itself off in the same way that Manhattan is–there are clearly tons of Chinese tourists–although once we let the guide start taking us places, we saw Western tourists too.
I can tell you that Fuzhou-ers, rightly, do NOT go out between noon and three. I don’t know what Chinese is for “siesta”, but they do it. We, on the other hand, spent those hours paddling pedal boats around a lake. Rory napped, though, so at least one of us has some sense.
I can also tell you that there’s a big nightlife here. Restaurants are packed. The park and city center that we can see from the hotel windows? Jammed every night with roller bladers, line dancers (seriously, same songs you might hear at home, although probably not in New Hampshire!) card players and general revelers. Parents with kids buying the kind of junky light up toys you find at amusement parks and on the 4th of July (which we will miss….). It looks fun. It looks festive. It looks very sociable, and you can tell people dress for it and get out there. You can just sense the hook-up scene, too…people look happy and prosperous. We get a glimpse of other things, too–people asleep on benches and such–but not much.

I really wish we could see rural China. I know Rory’s foster home is rural, but we can’t go, and it does make sense to us. We’ll have to wait for another visit.

There’s crazy lightening and rain tonight. Sam’s loving watching-we’re on the 18th floor. No one’s phased. Rory’s getting easier with us. It’s funny, yesterday wasn’t so bad…so I sort of thought, well, this is just what it will be like for a while. And then today, she’s relaxing, she’s listening better, she’s trying harder to talk to her brothers and sister. And I realize I’m doing the same thing I’ve done with all of them–assuming that anything, especially hard things, will last forever. There’s lots ahead, and none of it will last forever.

Tags: "china adoption", Travel to China!, travel with kids

So. Tired.

Tuesday, June 30th, 2009 | Connecting the Dots | 7 Comments

The real trouble with the whole quarantine thing is that it sucked a lot of the adventure right out of us. We’re tired. We’ve eaten a lot of things we might not otherwise have eaten. We’ve hung out together. We’ve talked to people. We’ve been stared at. And now we are ready to resume our normally scheduled programming, but we still have a week of travel to go.

Rory is adjusting well. She kind of collapsed today and took an exhausted nap, and I’m not so sure she was super glad to see us when she woke up, but she seems determined to make the best of it. We also discovered that she likes to ride in a stroller (we brought two old umbrellas) which is helping on the running thing–we just worry about traffic, and at night in the park–about which more later–there are crowds.

I’ve done a lot of mental mocking about people who say they ate Western food in China, or that certain cities were boring. But we are eating Western food–and Korean food, and other food–because anything gets a little old after a while. And while bored’s not the right word, we’re ready to leave Fuzhou. It’s just not set up to amuse tourists…Beijing was better, and I’m already wishing I’d done more shopping.

Tags: "china adoption", Travel to China!, travel with kids

Monday, June 29th, 2009 | Connecting the Dots | 10 Comments

We are one sleepy family–what a day. Rory came to the hotel with three women she’d never met before today, and no one from her foster home. When we came in she was wailing–in English–I want to go home! I knelt down and started whispering in her ear–I knew her foster mother had told her that this was ok, that she could go with us and we would take good care of her, and she let me pick her up, still shaking. Our orig. three were quite chastened…then they needed to do a passport photo. Oh not, not in the dress she was wearing. A dark dress. Fortunately she had a dress we had sent her in her bag, and we talked her into letting us put in on over her head. Then she had to stand–no, not there, here, can’t she look us? Tilt her head, take out her hairclip,s show her ears…
She got through it. Then a family photo–no, her arms have to be showing…
Ok then. Then we were sent off for a few hours of getting to know her. For the first 20 minutes she ate candy. Her foster family knew her well–they’d put about 5 packs of gummies in her backpack and she went through four of them and two lollipops. But then she was on the floor, rifling through her and the kids’ things. She would come back for a hit of candy or a look at her picture book–that was super important. We knew we were in when she offered to share her candy.
She prefers me but accepts Rob. She calls him Daddy, and sometimes Baba. The person she did NOT want was the adoption coordinator, who I think had thought she had seen everything until she saw Rory roll through Wal-mart in a cart like a princess, confidently asking for things in English. She has us down. When she played in the tub and Lily asked for her goggles, Rory–who was going under water and popping up with no problem, laughing–took one look at the pink glasses and said “where me, Mama?” She was right–of course I had a pair for her, just the same.
She wants to do everything herself until she can’t, and then she asks. Can you help me, mama? I can’t do this. But woe to anyone who tries to help before she asks. Spitfire. Lily all over again. But after you help? Thank you, Mama.
We did have to go back up to the room where we met, to fill out some forms. I was worried–I thought she might think she was going back–so I got down and reminded her that she came with us, and she would leave with us, even if the people from this morning were there. Which they were. She looked at them carefully. And then she got up and started dancing on the coffee table.
Apparently that’s our girl.

Tags: "china adoption", Princesses, Travel to China!

The Pringle Fairy

Friday, June 26th, 2009 | Connecting the Dots | 3 Comments

If asked, I can state with confidence that the maximum number of days one family should spend pretty much cooped up a room together is…6. Not seven. Seven seems to be just that much too much.

But we are getting there. They just took our temperature for the last time. We just had our temperatures taken for the last time. We ate our last lunch. We filled out a form that even had a box for “comments about our stay”.

And Sam was the Pringle Fairy. After lunch, we walked the halls, choosing rooms with more than one lunch tray outside and where we thought we could hear kids’ voices. Then we chose a hiding place, and Sam ran up, left a can of Pringles, knocked hard, and booked.

I imagine there are some pretty mystified quarantinees out there right now.

Rob is back at the Grand Hyatt. We leave at 6:30 tomorrow morning. Tomorrow, we’ll celebrate Sam’s birthday. Sunday, we’ll see the Great Wall and fly to Fuzhou. Monday we meet Rory. Knock on wood, we’re back on track.

Tags: "china adoption", quarantine, Travel to China!, travel with kids

And…We’re Off.

Monday, June 15th, 2009 | Connecting the Dots | 3 Comments

We are ready. Ready, as in, weighed suitcases sitting in the hallway. My mom asleep already. Me, popping one last movie onto my iPhone and gathering a few last cords and ends. Three excited kids asleep in their room (miraculously, no reappearances!) knowing that the next time they sleep in there, there will be four.

(Gulp.)

I do plan to blog while we travel–there should be plenty of pictures and lots to tell. We’ll be in Beijing until Sunday 6/21. We THINK we meet Rory 6/22 in Fuzhou. (Details, details.) We leave for Guangzhou 6/27 and come home 7/2.

We are well provisioned with iGadgets and Nintendo diddlywops. We have many, many heavy gifts for our hosts. (Coffee! Sweet tarts! Maple syrup…remember, they’re American.) We have several sets of matching shirts for four. We have swimsuits, comfy shoes and tums. I think we’re set.

Think I can learn Mandarin on the plane? I hear my seat comes with Berlitz.

Tags: "china adoption", Travel to China!

Paper Dolls in Action

Friday, June 12th, 2009 | Connecting the Dots | Comments Off

RIght now Rory, Lily, Wyatt and Sam are jumping off the Great Wall on their way to tennis lessons. Or something. It’s a little unclear…

No, Rory didn’t make a surprise appearance. She’s represented by a cardboard paper doll wearing magnetic clothing and played by Lily’s friend Kate.

We’ve gone through a lot of ramifications with China travel lately. Wyatt took a bad fall off a swing and came up sobbing “I don’t want to go to China, I want to stay with Grandpa…” appropo of nothing. Lily had a similar moment when she discovered she’d be missing her last gymnastics class, although at least that one made more sense. Only Sam remains steadfast… And Wyatt responded to a question from a friend yesterday: Yes, we are going to China to get my sister. “And then is she coming to live with you?” “No.”

Umm…

I think this has just taken too long. Mostly, they’re enthusiastic. Mostly, they’re thrilled. But we’ve talked about this, and planned it, and done things for it, and bought things for it, for so long now that to them it must seem like it’s already happened twelve times over. I’m looking forward to the trip. Now, as it gets closer, I too and beginning to be able to look forward to coming back.

Do you know the moment, when you’re pregnant, when something reminds you that pretty soon, life will go on–only with a baby? I had that, last week. We were biking in Fairlee, eating at the Whippy Dip and then going back for ice cream–something we only do during the summer, which has just barely started–and I realized: we’ll be back. We’ll be biking in Fairlee and eating at the Whippy Dip. And Rory (finally officially named: Lorelei Rebecca Ying-Bao Seelig) will be here.

Tags: "china adoption", Adopting Devils, Travel to China!

49 Drops of Poop, and Progress

Friday, May 29th, 2009 | Connecting the Dots | Comments Off

This afternoon and evening I:
Cleaned, badly and frantically, 49 drops plus one pile of dog poop in the ten minute interval between when I discovered the poop, and when I had to leave the house with the kids in order to deliver Sam and Lily to their ballet recital rehearsal. (Expect pics tomorrow!) Just fyi, in case you were thinking of getting a dog (and ours are house trained, this is unusual, but still) each and every drop had to be cleaned individually. Off the carpet. With a paper towel. And then Rob had to do it again when he got home, because my effort was necessarily cursory.

Had a fight with Rob. (As usual, this consisted of him saying something to piss me off, then me yelling briefly, then slamming things around while he sulked, the yelling some more while he sulked, then finally making peace while he sulked. Our fights are a lot of work for me.)

Finally emptied 7 boxes of stuff I’d ordered and had sent to us in, um, March, that had been sitting in the hallway, two of which were large enough to put all four children in, and still have room for what I’d actually ordered, minus the packaging. (Those two were three fans and a comforter.) Were the boxes the subject of the fight?

Kinda. The subject was me saying I thought I wanted to build some cabinets in the same hallway, but wasn’t going to because I didn’t like the carpenter I’d talked to (among other things, he was a heavy smoker and reeked, and I could just see him smoking in the driveway. Apparently I will vote for a smoker for President but won’t allow one to build me shelves. Incidentally that was a major compromise for me, because the thing is, although I like the occasional cigarette–as in, every two years or so–as a habit it’s just dumb. No gettin’ around it. Poor judgment. But I digress…)

Rob: Let us not build any cabinets until we finish all the other stuff we have started around here. (For we you can read “you”, meaning, of course, me.)

What stuff, you’re totally wrong, I know the house isn’t finished but how will it ever get finished, blah blah blah blah ok there are some things like that but I am still pissed at you and the door to the closet where i want to build cabinets is broken and I can’t get to the recycling and blah blah.

Rob: I can fix that.

Me: No, it is broken, it will never be fixed, nothing will ever look finished, you are right, it doesn’t look right, even when I’m done it doesn’t look right, it will never, ever look like Tanya’s house, never.

Sulking on both sides. Banging on mine. I begin to clean. Rob begins to fix the closet door in the hallway with the boxes. I open the boxes. I empty them all. Most of them are things for Rory or for the trip to China.

Gee, what unfinished project do you think is bothering us?

Tags: "china adoption", "home improvement", Adopting Devils, marriage

Things I CAN Do

Tuesday, May 19th, 2009 | Adopting Devils | Comments Off

Here is a list of the things I CAN do today:

Keep drafting my next freelance pitch.
Pack the kids’ carry-on bags for our flight to Seattle (6 hours!)
Pack clothes for the Seattle trip.
Buy suitcases for ditto, plus China trip. (We have three suitcases, two of the small black rolly kind (one with a hole in it) and one of the giant purple nearly impossible to keep under weight kind. I plan to acquire a pair of medium sized ones.)
Pack any additions to kids’ carry-ons for China trip into individual bags to be loaded into their backpacks when we come back (I like to put lots of surprises in for a long plane ride, and this is going to be a doozy.)
Pack Rory’s backpack for trip.
Get out and stack up Rory’s CLOTHES for trip.
Download new kids’ tv to ipod.
Plan Lily’s birthday party.
Order Lily a birthday gift. Locate gift to persuade Sam to choose for Lily. Ditto for Wyatt.

Ok, that’s a good list. Got a couple of things I can’t do, too, but I’m trying to just be zen about those. Rather unsuccessfully, I might add.

Tags: "china adoption", freelancing, getting organized

Wyatt’s Big Day

Saturday, May 16th, 2009 | Connecting the Dots | Comments Off

I had a fabulous day with Wy. There was some suggestion, yesterday, that perhaps China hasn’t had a blanket flu-freakout, and that travel dates, for everyone who’s waiting on them, may come soon–and although I’m still hoping we’ll be heading out in June, I can be ok with SOME delay–just not infinite, or even indefinite, delay. It turns out that the combination of a little positive news and a beautiful day returned me to my usual overly-optimistic viewpoint. (Optimism invariably triumphs over experience for me, which explains a great deal about things like the number of pets we have, and why we give multiple annual parties).

Point being, I was able to enjoy a day with Wyatt that’s going to be a lot tougher to have once Rory is home. I make it a point to spend some solo time with each of the three, to the point of working it into the schedule once a week–which, since the schedule is subject to many, many variables, means it happens every other week, or two out of three. And Lily’s been shortchanged this spring, but I’m working on that. But today wasn’t on the schedule, it just fell together, and it was wonderful. Lily had a playdate, Sam had baseball and a birthday, and Wyatt and I had a bike with a bikeseat for him and nowhere in particular to be, so we just enjoyed being together.

Turns out that when Wy grows up, he plans to be a fireman–the one that drives the truck—to live in the “fire garage” with his best friend Trevor, and to sleep in bunk beds, which are located not, as you might imagine, in the “fire garage”, but on the truck. And I will also note that it’s a lot easier to say “ok” to one frappacino which will only be partially consumed than to three.

Tags: "china adoption", china, photo, Travel to China!, wyatt

When it is hot, be hot.

Wednesday, May 13th, 2009 | Adopting Devils | 1 Comment

To decide to have a child is to decide to allow your heart to go walking around outside your body.

Wyatt’s TMO teachers presented us with that sentiment on Mother’s day, as their idea of a festive mother’s day apparently involves making one cry (they also offer handprints, and that poem about how the handprint won’t be this small for long—oh, and checkbook covers, which I quite appreciate.)

Let me just say that the decision to adopt a child—now that, that is popping a chunk of your heart out and sending it tossing around in the Pacific in a Pepsi bottle.

I posted a few days ago about control, and not having it, and oh, that’s ok, I’m all right with that, I said, merrily. It’s fine.

Right. Just dandy. I am perfectly ok with not being in control, which is probably why I dream, alternatively, about the two most obvious things that are out of my control, at the moment—a job I’ve applied for, and going to China. Or about leaving kids somewhere, or failing to meet a deadline…everything short of naked arrival in math class the day of the final, really. Apparently I am anxious.

There are many, many things in life I cannot control. Other drivers. Airplane pilots. Acts of nature. Whether or not, say, Julia Glass has also applied for the writing gig I want. (My favorite friend said today, in response to that, that I am much funnier than Julia Glass, to which I say, why, thank you, my ego swelleth, but the job still goes to the Pulitzer winner) China. Interest rates, the price of eggs, virus mutations.

Buddhist principles suggest that the problem with those things is neither the things, nor my inability to control the things—it’s my attachment to the things, or their outcomes. If I can release that attachment to outcomes, I will also release my anxiety. Christian philosophy places the “things one cannot change” in the hands of God, politely capitalized. Jews, I believe, put things one cannot change in the category of things one does not yet understand, with the idea that one should have faith that in time, all things will become clear. It strikes me now, as it has before, that these are mostly matters of semantics, of applying different words and possibly different mental techniques to what is essentially the same question: How can I not feel so bad when I am afraid?

There is a reason, I think, that we say that we “practice” religion. We also “practice” meditation, and yoga. I propose that one thing these things have in common is that we will never get them right. If you aspire to behave like a historical figure who’s acquired the status of myth for his legendary kindness—oh, plus miracles—it’s not like one day you’ll be able to say oh, well, ok then, now I can move on to mastering chess. We never achieve enlightenment, and all things never become clear. We just….practice.

I would like to say that today I could use less practice. Which is just another way of saying that we may or may not be able to go get Rory in June, or July, or August…

And so I turn to my garden, which I note is another common suggestion in many religious practices. Cultivate your garden. The idea being, I suppose, that here you can impose some measure of control, just to lighten up after all that practice. The Parent Association at Sam’s school (apparently NOT the Parent-Teacher Association, now that I come to think of it) has a deal with the farm where we get our plants anyway—the ones you can’t grow from seed here, like tomatoes and peppers—and one must fill out the form, to request one’s plants, which one then goes and chooses—just as I would have chosen them last year, only with, I suppose, the addition of the form. A level of bureaucracy has been imposed on the process to permit the transference of some of the funds to Sam’s school. An advantage, for me, is the introduction of a requirement that I actually consider how many plants I want, as opposed to last year’s plan, which featured a wagon and three children who really, really like tomatoes. I think that, provided I also subtract the children from this part of the process, this will be a good thing and result in fewer tomatoes at the end of the season, which will mean I will not feel obligated to dry them, and then not use them, because I cannot figure out 1)whether I dried them safely or 2) how to use them. They are still in my cabinet, though, do I get points for that?

Tomorrow I plan to lay the mulch, add the compost and get ready. Sam and Lily—and maybe even Wyatt—can put in at least some seeds this weekend. It’s a little early, but I’m feeling good about frost.

That’s a piece of Buddhist advice, btw. A koan, even, because in its entirety, it’s a mysterious response to a question about dealing with discomfort, but one of those things I think we understand better the less we think about it. Hmmm…The less we think about it. I think I’m onto something, there.

Anyway–I’m ready to take that particular advice. When it is hot, I will be hot.

Tags: "china adoption", acceptance, Adopting Devils, Buddhism, Christianity, faith, gardening, Judaism

Sometimes there’s nothing to control

Wednesday, May 6th, 2009 | Adopting Devils | 2 Comments

It looks like things are still moving in China-adoption land, flu or no flu. And so it looks like we will likely be trotting along on our planned schedule. One advantage to not being able to do something at the first possible minute is that it’s more likely to fall in with your schedule. Not that it has, yet, and aliens could always invade at the last minute, causing the whole thing to go up in smoke in an Independence Day-like fashion (now, there’s a fun way to watch movies. We all live in a dream world? But how would that affect my adoption? Aliens live among us as immigrant citizens? What if some of them are in charge of my adoption? Didn’t work so well with “I Am Legend” last night–in fact, I couldn’t watch.)
I had, actually a productive day by my newly reduced standards, and lessened my obsessing on the internet level by at least three-quarters. All that has to happen now is our travel approval. If it happens anytime this month, we’re good. It’s time to stop with the thinking–and get back to the doing.
And do I ever have things to do! Before we can travel, there’s the little matter of my sister-in-law getting married. In Seattle. And getting the garden in. And spring cleaning (it’s May, that’s spring here). And getting enough pitches and otherwise out there that I can be gone for three weeks without witnessing the collapse of my career.

But in case you’re doing what I like to do, and just noodling around looking to see who’s out there doing what, I thought I’d take a minute to post a little nothing. And now I’m off to unpack Rory’s new comforter!

Tags: "china adoption", "waiting child", Adopting Devils, china

A Solid Guess on Travel Dates

Tuesday, April 28th, 2009 | Adopting Devils | Comments Off

Here’s what I think:
I think we’ll head out around 6/11. Here’s the tentative schedule I’ve planned for us:
Day 1: leave
Day 2: Arrive Beijing
Days 3-4: Sightsee in Beijing. Lily tries to throw Wyatt off Great Wall. International incident narrowly averted.
Day 5: Fly to Fuzhou City
Days 6-9 Get used to Rory, one way or another.
Day 10 Fly to Guangzhou
Days 11-13 Various appointments
Day 14 Fly home. I may have the whole date line mixed up, but I think we arrive home pretty much at the exact same time we left.

I’ve been told to be flexible. I think we can handle that, since flexible tends to be pretty much the definition of our travel plans. We’re looking for a little luxury and good tours for those days in Beijing, and planning on letting whatever happens in Fuzhou City happen. (‘Cause what happens in Fuzhou City stays in Fuzhou City. I’m pretty sure that’s their slogan.)

We had plenty of conflicting advice about her name. I popped it up as a question on a board, and the thinking was divided equally into “she’ll adjust and be happy that you gave her a family name” and “you’re a racist, overly-Westernized white devil to even think about changing her name, and btw you used the phrase ‘going off the reservation’ in another post and that’s grossly insensitive too.”

Let’s just say not everyone on the “boards” is fully literate. (For those of you just joining us, our daughter’s name, as given to her in China, not by us, when she was 2 months old, is…Rebecca.)

And the irony of all of this was only highlighted by a piece in today’s Slate: What’s Up with Chinese People Having English Names? An american writer with a chinese name is mocked by his chinese peers for being so out of it as to still be using his original moniker.

In the United States, people tend to view names and identities as absolute things—which explains why I agonized over deciding on an English name—but in China, identities are more amorphous. My friend Sophie flits amongst her Chinese name, English name, MSN screen name, nicknames she uses with her friends, and diminutives that her parents call her. “They’re all me,” she says. “A name is just a dai hao.” Dai hao, or code name, can also refer to a stock’s ticker symbol.

Our decision–well, our partial decision? We’re calling her Rory. As for her formal name, we’re still working that out. I’m a big fan of nicknames, but Rob thinks her official first name ought to be: Rory. So: Rory Claire adjusted-and-yet-not-quite-finalized-chinese-name, or Lorelei Rebecca chinese-name, or possibly Rebecca Rose chinese-name or Rebecca Claire chinese-name who is just called Rory. Or maybe something else. But called Rory. It’s already on her shoe cubby.

Now we just have to get Lily some speech therapy before Wowy comes home.

Tags: "china adoption", "fuzhou city", "waiting child", Adopting Devils, china, Rory, Travel to China!

I Should Be Happy. Should I Be Happy?

Tuesday, April 21st, 2009 | Adopting Devils | 3 Comments

One of the perils of visiting my folks is that the radio station they favor plays a lot of Carpenters. That has obvious issues, of course, but one of the biggest is that even the very happiest Carpenter song, what with the whole sad story of Karen Carpenter, the nostalgia factor, my lost youth–makes me feel sad. And since it’s not a specific kind of sadness, I just apply it to whatever I’ve got going on that I could possibly be sad about.

And right now I am sad about Rebecca.

When I think about what lies ahead for her, I grieve for her. I can’t believe I’m going to be part of it. I look at Wyatt, and I imagine someone telling him that something wonderful is going to happen to him–that he should be happy, that he should be excited. I imagine them using word he doesn’t fully understand, and I imagine him trusting the person, and feeling that excitement.

And then I imagine him being taken away.

It’s hard to even write that without crying. In fact, I have to turn it around now–to apply it to Rebecca, to say yes, but she’s always been told this would happen, she can’t feel about her foster family the way Wyatt feels about us, that because she’s being prepared, that because in the end it’s “for the best”, it somehow isn’t the same thing.

But I suspect that it is. And even knowing the obvious–that she cannot stay with her foster family, that her future will be better here, that she will grow to love us–I am not happy. I want her. I am thrilled to have her, along with nervous and all the rest–but I cannot truly want this for her. What I want for her, she can’t have.

Wyatt wants a cookie. Rebecca is sleeping right now. I know she loves cookies, too.

Tags: "china adoption", "foster care", "waiting child", Adopting Devils

Big Stuff Afoot!

Wednesday, April 15th, 2009 | Adopting Devils, Travel to China! | 5 Comments

Wow.

So, none of what I planned to get done this afternoon got done, although, oddly, I cleaned part of the vegetable garden. Because, what with packing for Texas, finishing Rebecca’s dvd and package, finishing a pitch for my conference next week, doing a new post for the NHPR site I just started writing for, finishing the article for Parenting I wanted to have done before we left Friday…well, clearly what I really needed to do was work in the garden. Because we have LOA. (What the hell is that? See the previous post, please!)

But I digress (an excellent alternative title for this blog, btw).

Now we can plan. Now we can count. Here’s my secret plan: We’re in Seattle for Aliza’s wedding until May 27. I want to fly from there. It’s easier. It shaves 4 hours off our trip. It combines the craziness, and why not do that? It’s really reasonable, date-wise. Our agency won’t want to go for it. It’s going to make them nervous–too much planning too far ahead. I plan to spring it on them later. Rob I’m going to spring it on later tonight. He took all my mad sudden planning today very well (possibly because he was on his way out to play a last round of paddle tennis before the weather gets too warm to play, and don’t ask me to explain how that can be, because I can’t.) I do think it’s a good idea.

But–on to the most important subject tonight: Rebecca’s name. Now, Rebecca. A very good name, in fact. Solid. American. I like it. We’ll keep it. But we didn’t give it to her. And we do like naming. So we have some strong contenders for a middle or first name, and then we’ll see how it shakes out. I never, ever tell names beforehand, because the minute you do, someone says “Oh, I had a dog called that!” or “That was the name of the kid in third grade that everyone picked on!”.

But I’m going to do it now anyway. Here are the leading contenders:

Rebecca Rose, called “Rory”

Rebecca Claire

Audrey Rebecca

Rebecca Jade

Rebecca Elizabeth

Margaret Rebecca

Rebecca Skye (I suspect Rob’s just humoring me by leaving this one on)

Lucy Rebecca (much as I like this one, I think it’s out. Too many Lucy’s around already, plus it sounds like Lily. Ok, out.

We’re also adding a character to her Chinese name, but since I can’t type the characters and you can’t read them (neither can I) I will just leave them out, because that one has to both sound good and have the right meaning. I’ll get back to you.

Really, I have to go do something else. Seriously.

Tags: "china adoption", "foster care", "waiting child", Adopting Devils, happy, names, Travel to China!