Big Girl has been tossing me curve balls left and right lately. I'm shocked. We've gone from basic discussions of "what's that" or "why" when we do normal life things, to these great philisophical discussions. Thank Gawd she's the mellow one, otherwise, we'd be all over the drama here, more than Peanut's normal background noise of Diva going on.
This is where missing 6 age years of parenting is catching up with me...and the fact that Peanut, though she knows/remembers everything told to her, could care less. We've never had baby-in-belly discussions, even though my SIL hatched this week, and Peanut has had tons of photos of the baby sent to her, and seen Auntie on skype AND preschool teacher is very pregnant now too. We've never had "where is my Mom" discussions. None of it. Not from our lack of trying, for lack of a better word...Peanut knows her story. She's exposed to the words, the books, the ideas. She will tell you that she is from China, that we adopted her, that she lived in Hunan, and she needed a mama and a dada. She'll tell you that we came when she was 10 months old and brought her home to be our baby. She knows her "story", and can do more than just recite it. Of course, she doesn't understand the true implications of what all these words mean, but she's got the gist of it. And she was in China with us getting Big Girl, so she's seen it. She's seen sobbing babies at the hotel mad because they are in shock, confused etc too...
But the one thing my Peanut is NOT drama on is her story. When a kid asks who I am, she says "my mom" and the kid will look perplexed and ask "are you sure, she doesn't look like you" and Peanut will say: I'm Chinese. I look Chinese. She's my mom. She's not Chinese.
Bam, she moves on. It is what it is to this kid and nothing more, nothing less.
Big Girl, my laid back girl, asks questions that are indicative of the depth of her intelligence, and of her awareness of her unique situation. The first one she asked, about two weeks ago was when she was getting out of the shower..."Mama, you no babies, why?" So we talked about my endo in terms she could understand, and that I don't care where my babies come from, I love her and Peanut because they are my kids no matter what. She was easily satisfied.
Then last week, she asked me "I am sorta like hummm, this, brown. You no brown, you are like white. Why?" To which I answered "Chinese are like you. I am like pale French and German people." To which she answered "Where you born in? Deguo?" So we talked about how there is what your family gives to you, that she will always be Chinese and I will always be French and German, but we are both Americans, I was born here, but I am these things that were given to me by my family...she is an immigrant, but nothing can take away the Chinese in her. We discussed the Vietnamese and African girls in her class too. And that everyone is how they should be, no better, no worse.
Can I say these are damn hard discussions to have partially in Mandarin, even though her English seems to be coming even faster than the crazy fast it was even a month ago?
We've had discussions on Martin Luther King...and helping people...and personal space...and why I chose P to marry...and on and on and on.
Today, she hit me with another one, I think - well, I know - because we celebrated Peanut's 3rd whatever-you-want-to-call-it-so-the-least-amount-of-people-will-get-offended day. She asked if I knew what she looked like as a baby. This one hit me hard. Because I have no idea. They didn't give us her HTS memory book. I'm trying to get it. The earliest pic I have of her, she is 3-4 years old. I was honest with her and said no...I do not. And I would try to get them. She shrugged and said it was ok. We finished drying her hair, then I showed her the Big Girl box I'm putting together...all her paperwork, copies of everything etc. She read every document from CCAA. She read her finding ad. She said thank you for showing her her things. And hugged me.
That's the first time she's shown any interest in her past. And the kid who will play with the toddlers happily...the one who acts no where like a 9 year old...she acted like a 35 year old, processing the data, the information, the lack of information, like few adults can. Better than I could. And she gave me an extra hug and kiss tonight, and told me "I like you a lot mama...very much a lot."
I must be doing something right...
