Living with a Stranger You Love...

There's a reality of older child adoption that nothing can prepare you for: no matter how good placement and adjustment go, no matter how much you fiercely-to-the-death would protect this human, no matter how much you have dreamed about the laughter of two little girls under the Christmas tree...you end up living with a complete stranger in your home. It sounds harsh to call a child that, but they are. A living breathing being who you have no idea how to anticipate anything out of...

Our daughter has done amazingly well. We still worry (cause that's what I do best, right?!) that it's too good. But I guess we'll cross that bridge when we get there, if we get there. We thankfully (isn't that sick) got our first tears the day of Christmas, the day after I got my first kisses...good to see her not being so glib with everything for a change.

But, and I think I feel this magnified with H running around right on A's heels and my unending awareness that A was 6 when H was born...and a little over 6.5 when H was adopted...the awareness that you HAVE to treat the children the same, but they are worlds apart - not only in personality but also in familiarity. The whole "fake it till you make it" thing is totally different when the being that is looking back at you can read you - your face, your body posture, your reactions. You have to be as free loving and strict and silly and serious with the new child as you are with the one who you know down to the cellular level. Which for an over-contemplating, introspective human like me is something that does not come as second nature.

I admit it: It feels really really surreal to kiss a child you don't know and have them stare blankly back at you. You feel presumptious, yet you feel the bud of love in your heart. And you know that no matter the knowledge that it will open and bloom soon, there is no way you can say you really really love the child. You realize how much you don't know that child...at. all.

It's much more akin to learning to live with a spouse...the first morning home, downstairs having a cup of tea - you hear a light bump upstairs...you instantly jump, thinking your child fell out of bed. But it's in a part of the ceiling where she isn't sleeping, because it's not the child that you are used to listening for...this one...will she be up at 4a, or 9a, or will you have to force her to get up? These little things are NOTHING that are of consequence in the scheme of becoming a family in and of themselves, but they add up to a huge lack of knowledge that is EVERYTHING that is standing between the newness changing to the absolute certainty in the feeling of being a family.

Learning the way to get them to calm down and focus, how they like their eggs cooked, that they are more up for practicing English reading in the early morning hours...how to make them feel comfortable at the 18th Drs office visit...that hot chocolate is good, but chocolate cake is too sweet...and carrots are even better...learning that they have great language skills but were never taught critical problem solving...learning that they will pop their own baby teeth out without a blink, but tell them that you don't like people in your face 3 inches away 24/7 and the hurt will flash in a second across their face...learning that they like robots and dolls and pink and RC cars and sparkly clothes...but not anything in their hair other than a band...doing an odd dance of courtship of a being that comes up to your armpit.

Seeing them open up and tell a story about how they used to pick mushrooms in China. Seeing that they desperately want the snuggles and hugs they have never had and act like they don't need and then the next day coming and climbing in your lap after some milestone was reached in their hearts. Seeing them peek in your room and then sneak quietly downstairs cause they know you didn't feel good the night before. Seeing the pride of receiving parental approval when they master a set of English words. Hearing her admit that she would like the picture of her foster mother you offered - letting that shield down to her heart. Laughing at when she takes a Happy Meal box and sticks it on her head to make you smile after a bad conference call with work.

All those things...and a thousand million others...THAT is what makes this stranger slowly and steadily into the child of your dreams. And when the child is 9, you can count those things so much more clearly one by one as they tick by - when you can see them open up and blossom by being able to share the people they were before, when they want you to be part of their whole lives - those lives that were before - their preferences, their memories, their story. Cause this time around, it's much much more about them accepting you into the story that is their life.

A few weeks...

A few weeks, and I'll be called "mama" by 2 little girls. Hopefully. Unless Big Girl is actually really pissed off that we keep our promise and show up. Who knows? I can only hope and see what is to come. It'll be a whole new world that I thought was years off, that's all I know for sure. And one I actually feel at peace with. Somehow I know in my bones this is right. Even as I fume over the further bad crap coming out of our on-hold Taiwan program, I know that adopting Big Girl instead of a child younger than Peanut is the right move. I know if we adopt another, it will be a child 3 or over. How I know this, I dunno, but I do.

It's been sooo long, this process. And yet, I'm panicked now that it is so close. So much to do. No time to mentally prepare (hah...yeah...right) and yet a need to try to prepare, control, organize, file...in ways that cannot happen within the laws of physics of this world. Doesn't help with the crazy house still torn up (at a "mostly" cosmetic level at this point in the renovation.) with my freaking.

I'm scared to death to bring Peanut with. I'm more terrified to leave her here, so she comes. I do hope she gets something out of going back to China at this age. The kid remembers every.damn.thing...eveh. So I hope so. I hope she absorbs enough to feel her country of origin...to feel a bit of the adoption and to see her story thru the unfolding of her sister's story.

Oddly, I'm not so worried (well, not out of the ordinary levels for a neurotic redhead) about the trip...I'm worried about being a mother to her day to day. I still many days fret about my skill set with Peanut (see neurotic thing above), and...well...school, social dynamics of almost-tweens, sibling stuff, discussions about things that are more scary to discuss then trying to explain to a 3.5 year old, though deep and complex, as to why she cannot put nail polish on the cat or why KaiLans friend is so mean...I worry that I'll be a disappointment to her after she's waited 9 years for a mama and a baba.

Getting my swimming cap on, pulling up the swimsuit...getting ready to dive in. Hope the water is warm...

I've been humbled...

Two nights ago, I turned on my computer, sat with butterflies in my stomach, and waited to see the little icon turn green next to someone's name in my contacts list...when it did, my stomach lept right past my throat and into the ceiling above me. The I heard a little girl's voice impatiently pestering someone half-way around the world: "I want to see my mama, I want to see my baba, let me see them now."

The bravado quickly disappeared once she saw us. She was shy looking at us in the computer. We were getting short answers...which lengthened as the timer on the bottom of the screen clicked up with time. We got more eye contact, we got a few smiles, we saw her personality emerge in small glimpses - more towards her caretaker, but she was showing her true personality in fits and starts. Finally, giggles when baba swore up and down that yes, he likes the Chinese peppers too in food.

I was overwhelmed with the realization of the true depth of the language gap...she either didn't bother to listen to my feeble attempts at Mandarin, or found my tones so atrocious that she couldn't understand me. Truly in fear of the difference in societal norms for kids her age. She seemed so much younger than her age, she's smart, no doubt, but she's subservient in her thoughts, she did not feel at all comfortable in speaking her mind to us. She wanted to say whatever to please us, not realizing in this country that learning to be strong and sure of herself is a goal of parents.

I worry, she looked thinner, very very tired. She'd been in the SWI a month. And it looks like it is taking it's toll on her. I worry a lot.

And then I went to bed and laid there thinking about that hour...our first hour of life "together". And I thought about how she must have perceived the whole event...seeing the people who will come whisk her away, instantly to bigger, plusher hotels than she can imagine, onto planes she's only seen overhead, into a family that is completely foreign in more ways than one can imagine. The first time she heard us speak, in the language she will assimilate into, in the home she will inhabit, with all the mores and beliefs and history of "us" in this construct of a family she will join.

And there she had sat, worked up her guts and reached out to a new life waiting for her in clouded obscurity a world away. And she did all this sitting in a new place, a place that is foreign to her in the world she is used to...a place where she has recently had to work 24/7 to learn how to survive. Gone from what she has known for 4+ years...her family. She carried herself like a queen I believe, seeming small and fragile on the outside until you realized the strength carrying her thru to the point she's gotten to, and knowing that strength will continue to carry her thru farther than most of us could ever drive ourselves.

Enough with the fundraising already!

See, I'm liberal leaning. Not flaming pants liberal, but not a neo-con. I believe in helping someone when they are down...for awhile. Then I expect them to pick themselves up again. And I believe in frying people who do really bad things to society. Just so you know where I'm coming from.

But, honestly, why in hell do people think it's other people's jobs to pay for their adoptions??? Does anyone go to their friends and say "hey, husband and I had awesome sex a few months ago, and I've got a bun in the oven, so can everyone else chip in and buy me a crib, some clothes, pay my hospital co-pay, and buy me some maternity clothes?!?! I've got a 'chip-in' on my blog." Do they put one of those creepy 3-D ultrasound pictures on a poster board and post it in front of a garage sale and toss a cute "jimmy's here" shirt on mom with an arrow pointing to her belly to entice people to buy their old stuff, for the sake of little Jimmy??


Do people ask churches to pony up so their husbands can squirt in a cup and the Dr can mix it in a petri dish?


Then, why the hell do people expect other people to pay for their children thru adoption??? Whose job is it raise these kids? Us, the parents. Is it my job to feed my kid? Yes. To clothe her? Yes. To put her thru college? Yes. Then why is it not my job to bring her home?


And there's these people out there who cry "we've done 2 adoptions in 2 years" or "well, this will be our 7th". Kudos to you, cause Lord knows I can't parent 7 kids. But it ISN'T MY JOB! You want 7 kids? Make enough money for 7 kids. You want to bring hom 2 in 14 months? Save your pennies, cut your cable and cell phone, dear gawd, even take out a loan (shudder)...but PAY FOR IT YOURSELF!!!


A. your child isn't a charity case. Don't set your kid up to be told by Martha at church (nicely, hopefully), or Brittany the 7 year old down the street (unkindly as a jab), that they assisted your kid's parents in buying them.


B. We're adults. Don't bite off more than you can chew. If you can't afford 7 kids, stop at 6. If you can't afford 2, stop at 1. I'd love a 650,000USD house that I saw up the street, but I can't afford it, so guess what? I didn't buy it. I want to travel to Australia. But I don't have the money. If it's cause you did two adoptions fast, well, maybe then you have to wait a few years till you adopt a third.Cause guess what? That’s what life is all about. Just cause it’s a kid, doesn’t mean that the laws of economics don’t apply. We all roll our eyes at people who have too many kids by birth and really just say “shut your legs already”…so what’s the difference? Cause, you know what, they get more expensive when they get here...

I also don't buy the argument "we can feed them and love them but we can't afford all the crazy adoption fees". Well, I can afford to maintain that 650k house, but I don't have 650k in my wallet, so guess what? I don't have it. That's part of the expense of a child thru adoption.

I went thru infertility. I wanted to have children so bad it hurt. But I don't have a right to a child. I do have a duty though to my child here and all children I would like to have to be fiscally responsible for the sake of the family. I have a responsiblity to keep my child's story private too. I have a responsibility to take on the responsibility of that child, no matter what comes with it. That's my role as a parent.

The Real Meaning of "Waiting Child"

Now my daughter is a waiting child. A true waiting child. She is only now truly waiting for us. A was moved to the SWI in charge of her file a few weeks ago, unbeknowst to us. Of course we didn't know...we're not allowed to know next to anything officially. She was moved on the day we were DTC, ironically enough.

My daughter was taken out of a loving stable foster home she has been in for over 5 years to live in an institution. From the accounts I've gotten, it's a good one. But she's gone from the only family she's ever known. And I didn't know. And we caused it, technically. That's a hard pill to swallow...the first real effect we've had on her life is to cause that move, and to not be aware of it.

We had hoped, with how our state had fucked around with our paperwork, that they would not move her so soon. We had hoped that we would know. We had had a guess it would happen this summer, but...well, there were a lot of hopes.

And we understand why they did it. In principal at least. They don't want her to equate us with being taken away. But...she's older than most. She is aware. She's not a 2, 3 year old who viscerally reacts and doesn't understand the connections (s)he is making. No. This is an 8.5 year old girl. A girl who was loved...oh dear gawd was she loved. A girl who was actually being prepared for the adoption by her foster mother. Scratch that - a girl who was being prepared by her mother to be adopted. That to me was the best scenario possible - a loving stable home telling her this is good and they want her to be ready...it's not always that way, but in this case, it was. But rules don't see exceptions. No matter when they did it, she knows why she was moved. And now...right now...she is sleeping in a strange bed, in a group facility, with unknown kids and unknown social mores and unknown schedules and unknown fate. That's a lot for a child of 8.5 to be going thru...for the promise from some strangers 1/2 a world away that they are going to come for her, and that it's all going to be worth it.

My daughter is 8.5. Older than most would consider adopting, and that's fine. But she's not the 13 year old that is about to age out so that China moves mountains to hand carry their paperwork thru...so how long will she languish there? We don't have LID yet. We should have it. But we don't. So how long? We made a promise to be there by the end of the year...that's 6 months. Will China and the US allow us to keep that promise? Will she really have to be there 6 months? I can't hope for the special paperwork pushing cause she's not a special case to anyone but us. And nothing paperwork wise has gone well this adoption...thank you Illinois.

What does she have with her? Was she allowed to take her cherished belongings from home? Was she allowed to take her stuffed animal we saw in the video? Was she allowed pictures of her family? Was she allowed the scrapbook of her new life and the gifts we sent her? If anything, I hope she was allowed to fill the backpack we sent her with things from her life - we have a future together, I hope she was allowed to keep her past.

And I think about her foster sibs. I really think about her foster brother. Less than a year apart, tight as can be from what we know. He's up for adoption too. No one wants an 8 year old boy it seems. I've tried to advocate for him. I'll keep advocating for him...here and everywhere.

And her foster mother. I know she loves A. I saw it when she looked straight at me thru the lens of a video camera a few months ago and spoke to my husband and I. I saw her bury it quickly under Chinese dignity, but I saw it before she could stop it from bubbling to the surface...the pain in her eyes and the rock in her throat choking her at the thought of it.

This is what it means to be a "waiting child". She is waiting for a new life to start, paddling to keep going and learn a new temporary life. "Waiting child" is a monicker normally given to all the SN kids that are waiting...it gives a warm fuzzy name to a list of kids that many Chinese feel are unadoptable. It gives many APs the belief that these kids, older to a degree, will be happy to come here, that they truly are "waiting" for us, when in reality they are not.

Yes, this is short term. Yes, in the long term, this is good for A too...for 1001 reasons why she shouldn't stay in China. And yes, we have been given more info than we thought possible at the beginning of this, and for that I am thankful every moment of every day. But for right now, until my chalkboard score is more positives than negatives, it feels like crap to be in the negative with how I've affected her life.

My Sock Drawer Turned On Me...

There's just some moments in life, odd ones where my brain plays tricks on me, where I'm reminded in odd little ways about how my life has changed...what age has brought to my life.

I've had a lot of sock deaths lately. Been thru a few maddening weeks where every time I put a sock pair on, I have a hole on the balls of me feet of at least one of the pair. Most fought a valiant death, some just gave up the ghost like sissys. Either way, I found myself not filling my sock drawer to the brim about 6 weeks ago - it was pathetically empty on its best day. So I did one of those evil nasty shopping trips. You know the kind...where you spend like double the money you intend to, and quadruple the amount you want to, and you still probably should have bought more. Yeah...I stocked up on socks and basic tshirts and the like. My drawer was mostly full...tolerable at least so that I'm still driven to do laundry by the demands of a certain toddler to wash the cupcake underwear vs needing a pair of black socks that look decent for going to Mandarin Class.

This week I was in laundry hell. Dunno why, but every day I had to do laundry. And ironing. And more laundry. Last night, I came up the stairs and groaned -the cat had found the clean laundry bucket I had forgot about. So everything was packed down with cat weight. Yeah, great. So grumbling under my breath, I tossed all the rumpled clothes into the appropriate drawers.

Tossed about 3 pairs of my socks in the drawer. Kicked it shut with my foot in a gray sock, and paused. Then I opened the drawer again and peered inside. Eyeballed it from about 3 angles. There they all were, all my little toe warmers in various weights and textures and colors. Well, then it hit me. Blah. Boring. Uninspiring.

What had happened to my lime green with gray polka dot socks? Where were the black and gray polka dots cashmere socks? Where were the lime, gray and purple stripes? And the turquiose and gray? And the purple ones? The ones with the little paint splattery looking blobs? Oh, and the ones with the vine going up the side? All gone. In the landfill.

And in their place? An assortment of gray, brown, black, light gray, ivory, and beige....adult socks. Boring. Grown up. Responsible socks. Socks that worry about the fees paid into their 401k and worry about making sure to get the low sodium products.

I'm middle aged apparently.

What Easter Means to Me...

I don't have the traditional view of Easter...yeah, not shocking from the person whose very nature doesn't allow her to blindly follow anything but an awesome pair of shoes or a wickedly tight line of argument...

Easter was the first holiday that H was here. She had not been home long, but it was the first time we got to girl her up and take her out and celebrate something. We introduced her to P's extended family that first Easter. Last Easter was with my family, and this Easter was with my Dad and step-mom...so now we also have memories with everyone that are totally different situations. So I always have about 9.5 minutes of thoughtful reflection. I remember being the overwhelmed new mama, I remember her in her first cutsy-little purple, white and green floral dress with a little lavender sweater over it and black mary janes over her white tights. All the things that family-with-kids family photo memories are made of that I finally had as mine.

And I can still see in my eye the photo that came up on the camera screen when my husband took the photo of her in my lap....the first time I really really saw the vacant eyes staring back at me...we'd thought "she's come so far" the 7 weeks she had been home. She had...I don't deny that. But it showed me how far she still had to go in graphic detail. In the trenches of being a new mom, I had never stopped and just looked at her with the distance that a photo gave me. She looked like a doll - a perfectly formed, vacant doll. Still coping with what had happened to her to a great extent.

And I remember we tried to get her to smile...which we had seen her do often. But she wouldn't for the picture that day. Her way of keeping me in my place.

And this year, I saw her hunt down 15 eggs high and low with no issues. I saw her wanting to share her candy with me. I saw her say Thank You to the Easter Bunny...I saw her sit like a big girl in a big kid chair for 1.5 hours. I saw her charm the grandparents she took the longest to get used to. I saw her try 3 new foods. I saw her giggle and scream at the Easter Bunny, and worry about the ladybug climbing the window. I saw her see another Chinese adoptee and say "mama - she like me. Same." I heard her ask "why" questions thruout brunch. I felt her lean in and give me an unsolicited kiss. I saw the light in her eyes. I saw the spunk. I saw the intelligence. I saw the bonds.

She's come so far. And now, I know, she'll keep going.

The Importance of "Home"

I make no promise as to where this is going to go...

I've been reading the yahoo groups, the RQ discussions, blogs etc about adopting an older child. To me, A's much bigger "Special Need" is her age, not her limb difference. I'm much more concerned about how this will play into her adoption than her physical issues...

There's a bunch of different views out there:

• These kids deserve/want/need a home, and no matter what, even 3 hours before their 14th birthday, they should get a home.
• These kids at some age are too much associated with their culture, and moreso, their ADAPTIBILITY to life outside an SWI is too little to make their adoption successful, let alone an IA successful.
• There's going to be a lot of down days, and some up days, and over time it'll get better.
• This is going to be a really hard road and if you're lucky, you come out of it in one piece, but it's doable, though you'll pay the cost heavily.
• This is awesome. No one has ever had issues, do it, do it, do it!

Well, the skeptic in me guesses that the statistical bell curve most likely will put us in the middle road of all these ideas, but we're prepared for the worst, hoping for the best.

But I've been thinking about "home" as we twiddle our thumbs trying to not think about our paperwork languishing in various offices around the country...

What makes the place that instantly comes to your mind when someone utters that word to you? I don't doubt that H will think of this place as her home until adulthood. The good, the bad, the up's, the down's, my guess is this will be the place. But what about A?

My idea of home has changed over my life. There's the child's view of the house you are living in at that moment in time. Now I had a weirder situation in that my parents were divorced. Sometimes I viewed my Dad's house as my house too, sometimes not. So the notion of the little house you grew up in always being the place to return to is foreign to me. Also, no one stayed in that same house, and very few do in this country as it is.

But now, if someone says "home", I don't think of my loving parents and my childhood pets and a room with strawberry shortcake dolls in bins. I think of this house...I think of my daughter and my husband and our cats, and the pile of papers I've been promising to go thru for 6 weeks sitting on the kitchen island. And I guess I thought most people thought that way...home isn't a stagnant concept, it changes as life changes...

I have a neighborhood friend. She has a good heart, but is opposite my viewpoints on about everything. I honestly imagine her being the one who is like my SIL - the one in the family that will just . not. grow. up. and. move. on. I imagine her being the one the rest of the family mutters about when she calls mom for the 3rd time this week...she made a post on fb that made me choke on my bagel (ok, it was a handful of m&m darks, what's your point?!)...she posted that she was "going home to xxxx foreva". This woman used to travel 1/2way across the country every 3 weeks or so to visit her childhood home, before she had kids. She once told me "I wake up most mornings, thinking...I could just get on a plane and go home and be there in a few hours and never leave." And I wondered...what about your husband? Your home, your friends, your job, your...life?!

So she posted this. People asked if they were moving. She answered she could only hope so. She'd keep dreaming. Her husband of almost 10 years can see this stuff. What kind of committment has she made to him, to her two children, if she thinks like this still? I had never heard of someone who could have created this whole life and been willing to toss it for this view of what is still, really, home. And that's not even getting into the philisophical debate of if it can actually really go back home when you're 30-some years old...

So I read this post on fb last week...is this how A will feel? What will "home" be? Will it always be faraway in China? Or will she move onto a new phase of life, like many of us do, and think back to China lovingly, to the people who cared for her, but embrace a new "home."? Or will this strange country always be strange and odd to her, something that happened, and some good and some bad came out of it, but she'll never feel at ease here? When we take her back to China to visit someday will she post on fb that she's "finally headed home"?!

I know...I hope...she'll have fond memories and always feel a tie to her Chinese home. I hope she has those ties there. I do hope though that at some point she will bring up images of her room here, sitting here being a typical teenager petting her cat, annoyed that I can't drive her to the store right now because I'm shuffling thru that stack of papers that I've been meaning to sort for the last 6 weeks...when she's asked "what's going on at home today?" At least until she someday moves on to make her own home for herself.

Things I've Never Expected...

I've had a LOT of firsts here, with this 2nd adoption...which, I find ironic in and of itself. But I've been baffled, bowled over, flummoxed and dazed with this.

I admit, I'm not a "fall in love the instant I see the pic" kinda girl. I admit, I'm scared shitless about at least 3 things about this new adoptionevery day...the whole "life is good, are we tipping the apple cart thing" down to "how the heck can I guess what color an 8 year old is going to want her walls to be painted". But I'm also totally excited...But I get that us adopting an 8 year old with a minor limb difference is not something most people do, and definetly outside the comfort zone of all the on-lookers outside of adoption world.

I guess I really never ever expected that people would focus more on her age than her SN. I researched her SN and if I wasn't comfortable with it, I wouldn't be doing it, right??? But I thought for sure, being a physically visible deformity people would get their undies in a bunch about that part of this endeavour.

I've had one neighbor ask me if I'm "too impatient to wait for the baby", labelling what we are doing as a "move marked by fear, not education". Same neighbor told me that she has a 6 and a 3 year old, so she's more experienced at parenting, which is true, and then followed it up with something that distinctly said "so where the hell do you get off thinking you can be successful cause you aren't as good at this as me."

I've had people completely focus on the fact that "what if she's in a bad foster home"? Or, "what if she's in a good foster home and doesn't want to leave?" Both situations...doesn't matter in the end - they are not a permanent situation for this child. If she's in a bad one, which I doubt, cause it's thru HTS, then, well, we help her catch up with whatever she has to catch up, and come to terms with what she has to come to terms with. If she's in a good one, then she'll mourn, and we'll help her thru it, and if possible, we'll keep that connection for her. But it's not a family!

I've had people tell me she's going to be easier than H...that because of her age, she'll know what she's getting, so she'll be so excited and grateful to have a family after all these years. I hope she's grateful to have a family because I know I am, but I don't hope for her to thank me for taking her in...including a member of our adoption agency who said she'll be just so happy to have us.

I've seen people on forums state that we have to be prepared for a GED receiving child who may want to live working menial work. That one shocked me - this is someone who has seen so many children be adopted. Why is my child adopted at almost 9 going to be getting a GED?

See, the thing is, there's a bigger issue here...one that no one wants to say. It applies to all of us, adopted, bio, alien, whatever. Life a lot of times hands you crap. Sometimes it's a tiny little pellet you can toss into the toilet and not worry about - other times, it's a big steaming stinky runny pile and it takes a shitload (pardon the pun) of effort to clean it up. What makes the person is not the pile of crap, but how they deal with it. Some people see the tiny turd as a huge mountain and live their life by it. Some see the big pile as something that needs to be dealt with and another as a life-stopping event. And then there's some people who see it all as a great source of fertilizer...

My job is to teach my daughters, and remember it often myself, cause I'm the queen of pessimism...that they have every right to feel how they feel about the pile laid at their feet by the dog of life. But they have a choice of how to let it affect them. They can learn from it, grow from it, and strengthen from it, or just end up covered in it as they roll in their sorrow. I have to equip them with the tools to shovel, and hopefully utilize the shit for good...not just the tools to cope by clothespinning their noses.

All of us have these piles. And yeah, my kids have some pretty damn big ones to deal with for such little ones. My job is to teach them that it's ok to lick your wounds, but it's up to them to take these trials and own them, tame them, and grow from them.

And that leads to the pile that I'm now helping H clean up right now. Never in a million years did I expect that this would already be causing her to start processing her own adoption. Heck, the kids not even 3 quite yet...she's seen a video of her sister, and we talk about her jiejie, so how much does she really get? And maybe she's not - maybe it's just the thought that came in her head today...but she woke up last night (and she's been known to have night terrors, minor ones, in the past, so not shocking), and today after 25 minutes of nap she woke up screaming. She said she was scared of whatever noun I tossed out there...sleep, her stuffy dog, me, the window, the airplane tomorrow, the blanket, the lamp, etc...so I wasn't getting anywhere with guessing. Then she sobbed "A...."and I asked if she wanted to go to China. She nodded. I don't know if it means anything or not. She couldn't tell me what about her - she wanted to go to China - I don't know if she wants to go back, if she wants A here, if she is remembering something...or it's just random. But it's not what I expected to hear as the cause of her distress when I ran up the stairs to try and calm the screaming...

Not where I expected to end up today, but I guess that's how these brain dribblings usually go.

Things People Just Have To Get Over...

OK, I'm just annoyed for some reason today...here's a list of things you should figure out BEFORE you decide to adopt from China:

• If you can't tolerate the food, and you can't even think of trying to put it in your mouth...how are you going to survive for 2 weeks? I get some people have allergies, but that's a minority. Also, what are you teaching your kids? The adopted one...that there are big pieces of their culture that turn their parents' stomachs? And all of your kids...that they shouldn't just learn to freaking try something different?! You can live without starbucks and pizza for 2 weeks, believe it or not.
• If you can't handle flying...how the hell are you going to get to China? You are adults, you have to get a grip...alcohol, xanax, valium ain't the way to do it. Again...how are you going to handle a new baby doped up? Do you know how many people like you have bruised, smacked, insulted, and tortured my mother during the 37 years of service she gave to the airlines as a flight attendent? And, also, at some point, it's being an example to your kids...do you want them to see the way to deal with hard things is to take drugs?
• Egads, you may not get the brands you are used to in the store. Do you see an orange on it and it's a liquid? I'll betcha it's OJ. You'll survive.
• You might not get the made-to-order child. I'm soooooo sick of seeing people get mad that they didn't get the 6 month old cherub with no institutional delays or other undisclosed issues. Really? I mean, you get a 15 month old instead of the 12 month you were hoping for and you throw a month long hissy fit?
• SN/age/gender etc: EVERY ONE HAS THEIR OWN ANSWERS...some can do it, some can't. Just cause you think boy hugs are the best, do you really have to chatter in my ear that I'm defective cause I don't want to adopt a boy? Do I chatter at you that you won't accept an 8 year old? Hummmm? Do I think CL/CP is a big deal. Yeah. I do. I have my reasons. Others don't. Who cares. It's my choice, it's your choice. Because I chose a girl doesn't mean that I think your boy is crap. It's no value judgement of any kind on your kid - get over it.
• Yeah, you have to carry lots cash to China. Don't pat your pocket every 3 minutes, and you'll do fine. And the money there is the Yuan....tip in Yuan. Pay in Yuan...don't ask to use dollars...that makes you an Ugly American.
• People are going to say stupid crap about you and your kid. When it's your sister, brother, whatever then yeah, deal with it. But if some moronic old lady says something in the grocery store, you don't have to educate her. You owe her nothing. You owe your child everything. But, really, 1/2 the stuff out there is us being waaaaay too over-protective. Walk away and if you kid questions you about it, say "well, there's people who don't get it honey". But if you think you are going to stop every dumb forwarded message, you are going to have a very hard and bitter life...you have to put a filter on your indignation and decide what's worth your energy.
• Lots of agencies suck. No, I'm sorry...let me rephrase that: Lots of agencies SUCK HAIRY-ASS. pick wisely. And be willing to stick up for yourself at the end of it all.
• In the end, do what is right for you, for your child(ren), your family, even if it goes against what everyone else tells you. Do what in your heart speaks to you...that's how you find out that you are going to get to parent (another) best child in the world for you....and that's how you find your way to the most beautiful, amazing 8 year old girl in all of China.