Far to go

Keeping up with the Joneses - part 2

2008-07-16T05:00:00.000-07:00

Hi! Remember me? Yeah, yeah, I know that I've been MIA for a while, but I'm back and newly resolved to be a better blogger - trying for at least one post a week.

My last blog post (other than the recent celebratory interlude) was tantalizingly titled "Keeping up with the Joneses - part 1." Well, to keep the implicit promise made by that title, here is part 2.

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OK, so this past weekend, Mr. Fabulous and I began a major construction project in honor of the C.T.'s impending birthday - a big ol' wooden playset in the back yard. I'd post a picture of it at this point, but it is still under construction so pictures will have to be posted at a later date.

We've been talking about building a playset in the backyard for quite a while now - ever since we moved into this house two years ago. One of the things I miss about the old house was the swingset we had in the backyard. My niece and nephew loved to play on it when they visited and it was wonderful to be able to just pop out back with the C.T. for a quick swing. Our new home has many things that I love and many improvements over the old house, but I still missed the swingset. So, despite the expense and effort, we bit the bullet and went for it.

Going through the process of discussing what we could afford and whether it was worth it, I started to think some more about money issues and what lessons I wanted to teach the C.T. about money and materialism. Since one of the purposes of this blog is to be a place for me to verbalize my musings about life and parenting, you get to read all about it too! So, here goes:

Meg's thoughts about stuff

1) Stuff is not bad in and of itself. I want the C.T. to know this and to appreciate the fact that Mr. Fabulous and I work hard to be able to buy the stuff that we have. I don't want her to think that you have to feel guilty about that.

2) Stuff should be merely a means to an end - not the goal. At the same time, I think it is important that the C.T. not feel like she has to buy stuff just because she can or just because someone else has it. This will be a harder lesson to teach - because it is hard for me. Whenever I buy something, I have to consciously consider why I'm buying it and what purpose will it serve in the long run.

For example: books. I love books. Books make me happy. I like to read books, and I like to collect books. In the past, I let myself buy pretty much any book I wanted, any time I wanted. I spent a lot of money on books, and they take up a lot of space in my house. Now, before I buy a book I try to decide if it's a book I think I will want to keep and read multiple times, or whether I would be just as happy checking the book out from the library.

On a bigger scale - the playset. I think C.T. will enjoy playing on the playset for a long time to come - and I hope that her future sister will as well. Plus, it will be a good activity for the C.T's friends to play with when they come over. This works toward one of my big, long-term goals, which is to create a friendly, inviting environment so that our house will be a good gathering place for the C.T. and her friends.

3) It's all about choice. The most important thing that I want the C.T. to know is that she will have a lot of choices to make in the future that will affect her ability to buy stuff - choices about careers, hobbies, family, vacations, and so forth. She will have to decide what balance is right for her - whether it is worth it to her to have an 80-hour a week job that enables her to buy a lot of stuff, or whether it is more important to her to be able to stay home more without buying as much stuff. Whether she'd rather take frequent vacations or have a more localized hobby. Every choice she makes will affect the options remaining available to her . Mostly, though, I want her to know that there are really very few wrong choices. The right choices for one person are not necessarily the right choices for someone else. I think that it is most important to make express, conscious choices. Maybe even write them down from time to time. Don't let someone else choose the direction your life should go for you. It is also important to be honest with yourself about the consequences of the choices you make. There's really no benefit to fooling yourself. But most of all, I want her to know that it's OK to change her mind, as long as she is prepared to take the steps necessary to make her new choice happen.

What do you think?

Three years ago

2008-07-11T05:00:00.000-07:00

Three years ago today, we stopped waiting and started living.

Three years ago today, we learned to live with our hearts outside of our bodies.

Three years ago today, we started the most amazing journey of our lives.

Three years ago today, we knew grief and joy, hope and fear, anticipation and trepidation.

Three years ago today, we became a family.

How did it go so fast?

Keeping up with the Joneses - part 1

2008-05-02T06:27:00.000-07:00

American Family and Johnny have both written posts that have really made me think about my beliefs about money and what it means to be “successful” and how I can instill healthy attitudes about financial matters in my daughter.

For the past couple of years, I’ve really been struggling with an unhealthy desire to “keep up with the Joneses.” The desire itself isn’t really a surprise – I know where it comes from. But I still haven’t really figured out how to combat it.

The desire stems, in large part, from my parents and their responses to their parents and childhood circumstances. Let’s start with my mother. She was raised in a fairly liberal upper-middle class family. My grandfather was a chemical engineer and my grandmother was a teacher – a working mother and a feminist in a time when both of those things were very unpopular. I believe that my grandmother’s primary mission as a parent was to raise independent, educated, and strong daughters – which she did in spades. My mother got her bachelor’s degree, her master’s degree, and her law degree – all before the age of 25, and all while raising two small children. While in law school, she met my step-father. He had been raised in a single-parent household on the stereotypical “wrong side of the tracks.” While going through the “rich” neighborhoods with the big houses, he made a conscious decision that he would do what was necessary to make enough money to live like that. So, he essentially pulled himself up by his bootstraps and put himself through law school while he was in the military.

While I was growing up, my parents consciously decided to by the biggest and most expensive houses they could afford – a theory that ultimately led them to buy a house after my brother and I both graduated from college that was twice the size of the one we lived in while we were in high school. In addition, my mother had the express goal of raising me to be a successful, educated, and strong woman. She decided (and told me several times) that a good way to do that would be to teach me to appreciate the finer things in life, believing that if I wanted expensive things, I would be sure to finish my education and get a job that would enable me to pay for those things. And if I did that, then I would be successful.

As a result of my stepfather’s desire for big houses and my mother’s desire for expensive things, it is no surprise that I grew up equating stuff with success. This belief was compounded by my reaction to my father – who, for most of my life, I regarded as the epitome of what not to do. He was raised in a blue collar, factory worker household and was thrifty (or cheap, depending on your perspective) to a fault. Everything in his apartment (for most of my childhood, he lived in apartments rather than buying a house) was bargain basement or used. Despite the fact that he had a very good job as a computer engineer, he either never wanted anything new or never could bring himself to spend money on anything new.

To be continued.

Instant karma

2008-04-19T13:55:00.000-07:00

Did you ever say something one day that came back to bite you right away? On Friday, Mr. Fabulous took the day off from work and took the C.T. to the zoo. She hasn’t had an accident in a while, but I still pack spare outfits just in case. Mr. Fabulous called me en route to the zoo and mentioned that he had packed spare underwear for the C.T., but no other clothes. I laughed, and said that if the C.T. needed a change of underwear, she would need a change of pants as well – that she couldn’t possibly have an accident that required only new underwear.

Fast forward to Friday night. We went to see my nephew’s middle school production of Oliver (in which he played Oliver, and did very well indeed – good job A!). During intermission, I took the C.T. to the bathroom. She sat on the toilet and managed to keep her legs so tightly together that the pee went down her legs and, you guessed it, soaked her underwear while leaving her pants completely dry. Fortunately my aunt was a couple of stalls over, so I was able to get her to have Mr. Fabulous get the spare underwear that he had so fortuitously packed out of the car and bring it to us. As I waited in the middle of the packed bathroom trying to keep my half-naked preschooler from running out into the halls and streaking through the theater, one very kind woman passed by, patted me on the shoulder, and said “Don’t worry – in a couple of years you’ll laugh about this” Little did she know that I already was.

Happy days are here again!

2008-04-15T19:30:00.000-07:00

I love living in Colorado. Yes, it can be cold and snowy one day. But the next it will be gorgeous and sunny and WARM! It was warm enough yesterday and today to let the C.T. wear her new sundresses to school, which pleased her convinced-she-is-a-princess-just-call-her-Jasmine self to bits. And . . . IT'S APRIL 15 TODAY!!!!! I get my husband back! The C.T. gets her dad back! The agony that is tax season is over for another year! HURRAH!!!

Now we get to decide on summer projects for the house. Mr. Fabulous loves trees, and thinks our yard is pretty bare, so I'm sure there will be some tree planting going on. My top priority summer project is painting the family room. I've been planning on doing it ever since we moved into this house two years ago. But it's got really high ceilings and stairs with really high ceilings. The high walls by themselves don't faze me - I'm OK with ladders. But . . . the high wall that goes along the stairway has been very perplexing. I'm going to have to do serious research about the kind of scaffolding or special ladder we will need to do the two-story wall along the stairs.

Of course, the other big obstacle to painting the room is color choice. I'm indecisive enough when it comes to paint colors - but usually I can tell myself that if I don't like the paint color, we can paint over it. It doesn't help that (1) the room will be such a huge pain to paint that I will probably never want to paint it again and (2) this room literally leads into almost every other room in the house (it's a pretty open floor plan) and will have to coordinate with many of them. So, I'm thinking of being timid and just going for plain white. That will give us the most options for decorating and coordinating. I don't know. Mostly I just want to get rid of the yellow, which is one of my least favorite colors.

Things on my mind

2008-04-11T20:43:00.000-07:00

I'm tired of the cold. I'm tired of the snow (even though we haven't gotten that much of it this year). It's supposed to be spring!
I'm so happy that Battlestar Galactica is back on! It's been way too long. And So You Think You Can Dance starts next month. Now if they would just bring back Friday Night Lights, my TV bliss would be complete.
I wish my camera had been handy a couple of days ago when the C.T. grabbed the piece of tin foil I had just taken off of the enchiladas we were having for dinner, put it on her head, and proceeded to dance around the kitchen calling it a hat. Prime blackmail material for later years, if I had just thought to capture the moment. Hmmmm . . . maybe I can get her to do it again.
Maybe I'll be able to think longer thoughts tomorrow.

Goodnight!

It's the final countdown!

2008-04-09T21:00:00.000-07:00

One week and counting until tax day. This past weekend was made more difficult by the fact that the C.T. had a nasty cold. It first manifested on Friday, when Mr. Fabulous picked her up at daycare. She had a runny nose, was flushed, hot to the touch (a 102 temperature it turned out later), and half asleep on a bean bag chair grumping at any of her classmates who wanted to play with her. When Mr. Fabulous asked the afternoon teacher if she had called me, she said no - it was probably just hayfever. WTF?!?!??! Needless to say, I have since complained to the powers that be about this teacher's lack of attention to the SICK CHILD in her care.

The worst was Saturday night, when her fever spiked to 103.5, she was crying uncontrollably, complaining of pain in her ears, her head, her back, and her tummy. When she vomitted and started to complain that she felt like she was falling every time she stood up, I decided a trip to urgent care was in order. Four hours we spent there - from 7:00 pm to 11:00 pm. They poked and prodded, took tests, dug two slugs of earwax the size of beetles out of her ears (NOT a pleasant experience for anyone involved) so they could determine whether she had an ear infection or not. And after all that, she got two popsicles and a piece of paper that basically said "we have examined your child and determined that she has a cold. Have a nice day!"

Sigh. I had already planned on taking Monday off for a mother-daugher bonding day. I just didn't expect that it would all take place on the sofa watching one Disney movie after another. Mulan. Mulan 2. Madeline. Jungle Book. Strawberry Shortcake. Mary Poppins. Please kill me now!

Fortunately, she has since completely recovered from the fevers. Alas, she has yet to recuperate from the relapse to normal TV viewing restrictions. With constant monitoring, however, the prognosis looks good.

I'm still alive

2008-04-04T10:33:00.000-07:00

Hi, yes I know I have'nt posted in a while. I don't believe I've mentioned that Mr. Fabulous is a CPA with a tax practice. What that means is that I've been on single parent duty for a while, and will be until April 15. The C.T. is not dealing with daddy withdrawal well, so I've been trying to be extra available to her to make up for it. She' doing better than last year, but is still pretty clingy and irritable.

Her latest trick when she gets mad at me (at least a daily occurance) is to "call" my mother. She will announce that she is going to call my mommy, hold her hand up to her ear like a phone, and say "Hello? [Meg] is not listening!" Then she'll "hang up" and say "I called your mommy, and you're not getting any treats. Hmph!". It takes every ounce of self control I have not to burst into laughter at that point - the most I can do is try to calmly assure her that I'm pretty confident Grandma will be on my side with respect to whatever it is the CT doesn't want to do. Never a dull moment!

Cultural Appropriation, the sequel

2008-03-04T20:51:00.000-08:00

First of all – I got two comments in one day – woo hoo!! It does feel nice to know that at least a couple of people are reading this, and that it’s not just me talking to myself. Well, OK, it is mostly me just talking to myself – but it’s nice to know that others like to peek in from time to time.

So, AntiM’s comment on my “questions” post, made me think a little bit more about the question of cultural appropriation and why I worry about it. I’m not as concerned about offending people in general as I am with giving the C.T. the space to figure out who she is for herself. I feel that there is a fine line between, on the one hand, trying to make sure that she is comfortable in her own skin (as much as I can) and comfortable and proud of her Chinese heritage and, on the other hand, not going so much overboard with the embracing of the Chinese culture that it becomes more about me than about her.

With regard to the mother necklace, I can see a couple of sides to it. On the one hand, again, it could represent to the C.T. (like it does to me) that I am absolutely and forever her mother and that she will always have the same place in my heart that she would have had if I had borne her myself. On the other hand, I don’t want to diminish or ignore her birth mother and her birth father and their role in her life. Somehow, someday, she is going to have to come to terms with the fact that she will likely never know who they are or why they chose not to raise her. I can love her and support her and be there to listen and help her process her feelings about that, but I can’t make that fact go away and I can’t ignore the fact that they will always be a part of her life.

One of the best things that my parents ever did for me was to let me decide for myself what my feelings and relationship would be with my father. They didn’t try to force me to have feelings for him that I didn’t have – but they didn’t badmouth him either, even though there were lots of negative things they could have said about him as I grew up. I can’t say the same about him. Some of my most powerful memories of my father are the negative things he said about my mother and stepfather. And it always affected how I felt about him more than it affected how I felt about them. I want to give the C.T. the same freedom. The freedom to choose how she feels about her birth parents. The freedom to choose how much or how little she wants to assimilate into the majority culture. The freedom to discover and to be herself.

I have more thoughts on this, but it’s late and I need to go to bed.

To be continued.

Background - part 3

2008-02-20T16:03:00.000-08:00

So after law school, I basically continued in my delusional state for a couple of years. And then, I had a major a-ha moment. One day my whole family happened to be in town for some family event. My mom, my stepbrother and my nephew were out and about and stopped at a local country club to buy a shirt that my nephew wanted. When my stepbrother and nephew went into the clubhouse to buy the shirt, they were refused with a lame excuse (either the store was closed or not open to the public or some such nonsense). But when my mom went in five minutes later, she had no problem buying the shirt.

What I remember most was when they came home and told us the story. Every white person in the room was outraged, ready to write nasty letters to whomever we could think of in angry protest. Every black person in the room sort of shrugged their shoulders and said "yep - that happens" I started to realize that I had no concept of what it really meant to be black in America, day in and day out. What it was like to live with a thousand little cuts that, alone, were meaningless but that combined were enough to create a protective callous on your soul.

Background - Part 2

2008-02-12T13:13:00.000-08:00

As I grew up, my wish to be like and look like my stepfather continued. I took every odd glance, every act of discrimination our family encountered to heart. I convinced myself that I really knew what it was like to be black in America - that, in fact, I was for all intents and purposes practically black myself - a sort of inside out oreo.

This delusion came to a head when I started law school. I chose to attend the same law school my parents had both attended - the school, in fact, where they had first met. They were in the school's first graduating class and my dad was the first - the only - black student. "When I was in law school," he would intone, "BLSA [the Black Law Student's Association] met whenever I dined alone!"

Well, when I started there, I decided to join BLSA. But they didn't want me. I was outraged. Didn't they recognize that I was a kindrid spirit? Didn't they know who I was!? I wrote an indignant letter to the editor of the school paper which was, of course, published. BLSA then decided I could join as an associate member. I declined. In my mind, it was too little too late. Besides, finals were coming up and I needed to study.

More later.

Meg

Background - part 1

2008-02-11T11:12:00.000-08:00

So now that I've decided (sort of) what I'm going to do with this blog, a little background is called for to give context to my musings on cultural appropriation and being a multi-cultural family.

You see, I grew up in a multicultural family. My (very white) mother married my African-American stepfather when I was young. My relationship with my "real" father was very strained, so I've always considered my stepfather to be my dad. So much so that for a large part of my childhood, I wished I looked like him so that people wouldn't think it strange that he was my father.

There is a story my family tells about one time we all went to church togethre when my parents were dating. All four of us kids were there - two of us blond, aged 5 and 3 and two of us black, aged 4 and 1. This was in the Pacific Northwest in about 1972 or 1973. A little old Norwegian lady was looking at our family with great confusion. My dad leaned over, and told her quite seriously "for those two, I was on top and for those two, she was on top ." "Ohhh," she said, as if she now understood it all perfectly.

I don't remember this, but every time my parents told the story, I got a little glow inside, thinking "this is my family," happy to belong with them and to be a family - even if the rest of the world didn't always see it the same way.

More later.

Meg

a clarification

2008-02-10T21:47:00.000-08:00

OK - I have to point out that, according to my clock - it is 10:45 - not 9:16. I don't want any readers that may come around to think I normally go to bed at 8:45. Heck, even the C.T. normally isn't asleep by then - honest!

Meg

Questions

2008-02-10T21:16:00.000-08:00

Hi! I'm still here! Yes, I know it's been a month since I posted last - and I'm going to improve on that - honest. I've been sort of struggling with exactly what I want this blog to be about. See, the main things that occupy my mind are (1) my job, (2) my husband and (3) my daughter. But none of those topics really provide consistent blog fodder. With respect to my job - even I am not oblivious enough to imagine that the things I find interesting would be at all remotely interesting to anyone else. Besides which - I'm not allowed to write about the things that might either be interesting to other people or put the things I could potentially write about in context. With respect to my husband - I love him dearly, but don't really feel comfortable writing about our relationship on the internet. Good things I would have to say would likely seem trite and boring. Bad things I have to say should probably just be kept between the two of us. I might occasionally have some amusing and interesting anecdotes, but they don't ordinarily give me the incentive to turn the computer on and start typing late at night after everyone else has gone to bed. The same is true about my daughter - although the anecdotes might be more frequent and possibly more amusing.

So, I've decided to keep this blog as a place to identify and wrestle with questions about life and living that come up as I read other blogs and books. I think it will be useful for me to actually write these things out as I think about them. It might possibly be entertaining for others - but the primary purpose will be for me to put some thought and structure to some of the things whirling around my brain.

A couple of things that have stuck in my brain lately. First of all, over on the anti-racist parent blog, http://www.antiracistparent.com/2008/01/30/the-ultimate-cultural-appropriation/, there was an interesting post about cultural appropriation relating to a necklace that the author had for years that had the Korean characters for "mother" on it that she now feels uncomfortable wearing because she feels that it might make her children feel that she was discounting or diminishing their first mother. I have a similar necklace, with the Chinese characters for "mother" that I recently asked for as a mother's day present. This post has stuck with me, and made me think about when cultural appreciation crosses the line and becomes cultural appropriation and how, as an adoptive parent, I can honor and encourage my daughter to be proud of her Chinese heritage without losing sight of the fact that it is HER heritage - not mine. I have more to say about this, but that is a post for another time.

The other thing that has stuck in my brain lately relates to a book I've been reading - The Emperor's Children, by Claire Messud. I think I'm going to pick it for the next time I host my bookclub - partly because I really liked it, but mostly because I think it would be a great conversation starter, and I would really like to hear what the other members of my book club think about it. It has gotten me to wondering how much of who I am is a result of how my parents saw me and treated me - and how much of how I parent my children will affect who they become as adults. Again - I have more thoughts on this, and will post on it later.

Until then, it is half an hour past my bedtime, and tomorrow is a work day.

I promise - it won't be a month before I post again.

Meg

Hooray for potties!

2008-01-09T16:40:00.000-08:00

While I’m not yet holding my breath, it appears as though we have finally turned a corner in the potty training progress. Three whole days without accidents! And the C.T. is telling us when she needs to go! Hallelujah!! [Yes, I know I’m going a little wild with the exclamation points – but don’t you think this development merits it?]

Potty training progress

2008-01-07T11:01:00.000-08:00

I’ll probably regret writing this (Murphy’s Law and all), but it is looking like there is FINALLY some progress on the potty training front. The Cutest Thing is almost three and a half, and up till now has demonstrated remarkably little interest in peeing on the potty. She’s made BM’s on the potty regularly for the past three to four months, but could care less about being wet. We’ve tried stickers, candy, wearing underwear inside of pull-ups, “naked days” and more – all to no avail. We put all potty training attempts on hold during the holidays, going back to just pull-ups and have now started up again. The latest rule in our house is that the C.T. may not wear pull-ups at home – just big girl underwear. We put the kitchen rug in the basement, put waterproof mattress pads on the sofas, invested in a Spot bot, and are generally prepared for whatever cleanup is required. When she uses the potty she gets candy and also gets what is proving to be the most effective reward – TV time. On Saturday, she had three accidents. Yesterday, she had only one. And as of the time I dropped her off at daycare this morning, the C.T. had been dry for 24 hours (not counting night time). The biggest indicator of progress was when she actually told me this morning that she needed to use the potty – the first time she has ever said that first thing in the morning, which is typically the grumpiest part of the day. I am realistic, and know that it was only because she wanted to watch TV, but I still think it was progress. Here’s hoping for more of the same in the future!!

Hi!

2008-01-03T11:03:00.000-08:00

It’s been a couple of weeks since I posted last – things got so hectic at the end of December.

First the Cutest Thing got sick, then I got sick, then we had the Christmas Invasion (I think the last count was 28 people at my mom’s house for Christmas dinner). And now the New Year is here, and life should be returning to normal. I’ve been telling everyone that I love December and Christmas – and I love when it’s all over too.

New Year’s Eve was a little anti-climatic for us. I don’t really like driving that far on New Years Eve, so we end up avoiding most parties. In the past, my parents (who live a few minutes away) always had a pretty low-key gathering that I enjoyed, just some friends getting together to play cards and ring in the New Year. But for the past few years, my parents have started leaving for their annual trek to the tropics on the last Saturday of December rather than the first Saturday of January, leaving us in the lurch for New Years. We invited my mother-in-law, brother-in-law, and sister-in-law over, which was fun – but they fizzled out at about 10:30. We (I should say “I”, since it was my idea) also made the mistake of letting the C.T. stay up as long as she wanted, assuming that she would collapse about 9:00 or so. No such luck. She spent the evening winding herself up higher and higher so that by 11:00 she was completely hyperactive, out of control, and on the verge of losing her balance with every step. I decided that it was time to put her to bed, but it took almost an hour to scrape her off the walls and calm her down enough for sleeping. Of course, just as she was about to drop off, she was woken up because Mr. Fabulous poked his head into her room so he could tell me that it was almost midnight. As a result, the first minutes of 2008 saw me trying to calm the C.T. back down upstairs while Mr. Fabulous got to watch the ball drop by himself on the TV downstairs. Not the big romantic New Year’s Eve we all dream about.

Oh well – there’s always next year. The silver lining was that the C.T. slept like a rock until after 9:00 the next morning – so we did get to sleep in!

And now we return to “normal” – whatever that is – for a while. Of course, since Mr. Fabulous is a CPA, the next big hurdle is tax season. I think this is going to be a difficult one since I also expect to be working more than normal due to the fact that we are understaffed at work and one of the other attorneys in my group is due to go on maternity leave starting in a few weeks. I try not to get jealous that in the eighteen months since we submitted our dossier to China, my coworker got married, got pregnant, and will give birth while our wait for our next child has only gotten longer and longer, with no end in sight. But that’s a topic for another post.

Happy New Year!

The miracle of a sleeping baby

2007-12-12T10:36:00.000-08:00

You know, there are so many things that I thought I knew before but that I really didn’t understand at a deep core level until I became a parent. One of these things was the miracle of instantaneous family that comes with a new baby. When I was young and single, I had a friend, C, who had a new baby. One of the things that C told me was that she was just amazed by the fact that her baby was this whole new person that didn’t exist a year before and that when she took her baby home to meet her family, there was no question but that the baby would be accepted and loved. Unlike a boyfriend or a new husband that you bring home to be inspected and approved, a baby was instantaneously and irrevocably part of the family without question. At the time, I thought to myself “duh, of course. That’s just the way it works – not really amazing, it just is.”

And then my nephew A was born, and I thought “aha! Now I know what C was talking about.” There was this whole new person I knew nothing about – I didn’t know his personality, his likes or dislikes, or anything about him as a person. I just knew he was my nephew, and that was enough for me to love him. Fast forward several years to when we brought the Cutest Thing home from China, and then I really understood. Here was a child, born half way around the world in a place I didn’t know to people I didn’t know who had been loved and cared for by other people I didn’t know. One day, all we knew about her was contained in a few sheets of paper and a couple of pictures - and the next day she was family. I had done my share of reading about attachment, and I knew that it would take time – both for her to attach to us, and for us to attach to her. And it did. But what I didn’t expect was the seismic shift in my own heart just because of the simple act of signing a piece of paper and agreeing to be her mother. We didn’t know her yet, we weren’t attached to her yet, and she certainly wasn’t attached to us yet – but we were family. And that was enough.

Another thing I didn’t really get before was the joy of watching a child sleep. The C.T. has been getting up in the middle of the night and coming into our bed with great regularity recently, which has created some sleep issues for me – but also some great opportunities to just sit and watch her sleep. I could do it for hours. Well – maybe not hours, but a long time, certainly. And then this morning, as I watched her sleep, she started giggling in her sleep. It was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. I wish I could know what she was thinking, what she was dreaming about. But of course, I can’t. And I was just struck with awe once more that we were entrusted with this wonderful, amazing, innocent child and that we are responsible for caring for her and protecting her and giving her the knowledge and skills that she will need as an adult. I worry about the mistakes I have made and that I know I will make in the future. But we are none of us perfect. All I can do is read, think, pray, and do my best to give her what she needs and deserves. Because we are family. And I hope it is enough.

Week 2 of the Christmas extravaganza.

2007-12-10T15:15:00.000-08:00

Ok, maybe I need to take a day or two off (even though I can’t really afford to use the vacation time) in December this year. I honestly have no idea when I’m going to finish the Christmas shopping and if weekends continue at this pace I’ll be completely gone by January. However exhausting, the weekend was still fun.

I started off Saturday morning with the three hour pre-performance choir rehearsal for the Gloria – great fun, and SOOOOOO much better than the Wednesday night rehearsal. I actually began to have hope that we wouldn’t completely embarrass ourselves on Sunday. Mr. Fabulous took the Cutest Thing to Chinese School in the morning, followed by a visit to his office and lunch with his partner and her family. They got home just in time for me to bundle the C.T. in the car for a quick car nap on the way to go to see Disney’s Princesses on Ice. Oh, my word. I’ve never seen so many little princesses in training in one place in my life. It was amazing. The C.T. adored it.

While we were there, I learned a very valuable lesson about consumerism. I planned to buy the C.T. a little gadget or trinket, assuming that she’d be completely gaga over all of the princess paraphernalia for sale at the arena. And you know what – she wasn’t! She was delighted to be wearing her princess dress, overjoyed to see her friends and watch the ice skating – but all she really wanted to buy was a snack. And the surprising thing was that I was a little disappointed that she didn’t want a new gizmo. I think I tried too hard to not do what my brother did when we took my niece and nephew to the circus a couple of years ago. There was a particular toy my niece wanted that my brother refused to buy her. He chose to buy a different toy that would last longer, even though it wasn’t what she wanted. I remember my niece's disappointment, and I remember thinking that I would let my children choose the souvenirs that we would buy (as long as they were within the price range I had set for myself) because choosing which cheap plastic toy you want to take home is part of the fun of going to a big event. So, during the break, I was all ready to go out and wander the concessions stands in search of the perfect toy that would bring sparkles to her eyes - even though she was already pleased as punch with the whole event and even though all she wanted to do was sit and watch the zamboni driver. Fortunately, common sense kicked in, and I realized that there was absolutely no point to buying something just for the sake of buying it. So we sat and watched the zamboni and had a fabulous time.

The rest of the weekend was filled with snow, another party, two performances of the Gloria (which went pretty darn well), sledding in the open space behind our house, hot chocolate, and a failed attempt to put up the Christmas tree after having lost the directions last year. A thoroughly satisfying December weekend. Can I go to sleep now?

Hooray!

2007-12-07T10:51:00.000-08:00

Is it wrong that I am doing a little happy dance today because the Cutest Thing chose to bring a book to daycare for show and tell today rather than the Cinderella doll she got at the Christmas party last weekend? Yeah for books!

Holiday happenings

2007-12-03T11:30:00.000-08:00

If this last weekend is what the rest of December is going to be like, all I can say is bring it on - I had FUN!

We started off with the birthday dinner Friday night with the unexpected bonus guests of my aunt (who never tells me when she is going to be in town) and cousin. This led to the unexpected bonus gift of a Le Crueset Dutch Oven - which I have long lusted after. Score!

Saturday started with Chinese school for the Cutest Thing and an unexpected gift shopping opportunity for me. Followed by the receipt of the latest Cooks Illustrated magazine featuring no fewer than four delicious sounding recipes requiring, you guessed it, a dutch oven. (See the unexpected bonus gift described above). Then we had some fun family Christmas decorating, followed by a Christmas party with my mom's group - a lovely group of women (and their husbands - but they don't come to half of the stuff we do) who all have daughters adopted from China - four of whom were in our travel group in 2005. The crafty mom presented us all with her second annual DVD compilation of pictures from our various dinners / playdates / get togethers / events throughout the year. It's so much fun to see the girls grow together - and I don't think there was a dry eye in the house.

And then on Sunday we got to go to a professional basketball game with the CT's whole daycare class and their families, courtesy of the dad of one of the kids who is the manager or agent or something like that for one of the players. We took up three rows, and the kids had the best time climbing over the seats to visit each other and eating junk food and cheering and dancing and waving the car flags we had gotten at the door. At first, the CT was unsure about the whole thing - it was too loud and bright and overwhelming for her. But after we sat in our seats for a few minutes and she got her bearings, she began to have fun. I got to talk to some of the other parents, and realized that I had somehow missed out on the creation of a group email list. Apparently they all get together every couple of weeks or so. I gave them my email address to add to the list - but am a little ambivalent about it. On the one hand - they all seem like really nice people and I know that the kids all like each other. On the other hand, between work and church/choir and family and my mom's group and my book club, my schedule is pretty full. Oh well - as they say, there is plenty of time to sleep when you are dead. Right?

40

2007-11-30T08:48:00.000-08:00

And so a new decade begins. I think my funk yesterday was useful – it made me think about my life, what I’m happy with, and what I would like to change. Good things to be thinking about when you hit one of those milestone moments in your life. Reflecting on how much my life has changed for the better in the last ten years helped to lift me out of the funk a little, and I started a list of what I want to do with the next year and ten years of my life.

First, in the future, I am going to plan on taking at least a week off of work during December each year. Not all at once – just individual days here and there to give me the time to do the things I love to do during the holidays without trying to crowd them all into the already busy weekends. I think that will reduce the holiday stress and bring my enjoyment of the holidays back to where it was ten years ago.

Second, I am going to try to forget the paperwork that is sitting in China and just try to enjoy my family as it is now. I’ve been able to do that for the most part – but every now and again I need a reminder.

Third, I am going to try to explicitly tell people things more rather than either assuming that they can read my mind. This is probably the hardest of my resolutions because I tend to keep things internalized a lot. And I know I do that out of fear – fear of rejection, fear of indifference, fear of ridicule. But the truth of the matter is that silence does not foster relationships – it kills them slowly. And because I am afraid of saying things out loud –good or bad, my relationships with friends and family are at risk of withering on the vine. I cannot be afraid to tell people I love them. And the fact that I’m sitting here crying as I write this tells me that this will be both difficult and necessary. I know that I am better at this than I was ten years ago – but it is a struggle that I must continue.

And on that cheery note, I will conclude. Happy birthday to me!

In a funk

2007-11-29T11:20:00.000-08:00

For some reason, I've been in a funk all morning long. It could have something to do with the fact that today is the last day of my thirties - but I don't think so. When I think back and compare my life now with my life ten years ago, I know that so many things are incredibly better now than they were then.

Then, I was living in tiny apartment in a big city that had lost its glamour for me - alone and away from my family. Now, I'm living in a house with a yard in the city of my youth, near all my family and many old and new friends.

Then, I was in a high pressure, highly paid job that was challenging intellectually but that took all of my time and I felt unsatisfied because I was helping rich people do things I didn't really agree with. Now, I am in a medium pressure, medium paid job that is challenging intellectually but that leaves me some free time and enables me to believe that I am actually doing good things that help the community as a whole.

Then, I had just come out of a destructive relationship with a major jerk. Now, I'm in a happy marriage with Mr. Fabulous and have the most amazing daughter anyone could ever ask for.

No - I think my funk has more to do with the holiday season. That is one thing that has not gotten better over the years. Back when I was thirty and single, the holidays were very low stress. I flew home and spent Thanksgiving and my birthday with my family. Mom cooked nonstop and I partied like it was 1999. For Christmas, I went to one party (my office party). I didn't send Christmas cards. I always took a week vacation, flew home, and spent one madcap day at the mall with my nice annual bonus. The Christmas traditions were long established and unquestioned and comfortable.

Now - the whole season has changed. All of the good things in my life have conspired to create chaos. The holidays have to be doled out and rationed between in-laws and my family. Old traditions have to be rethought and renegotiated each year. I have new and old friends - and as a result have three Christmas parties to go to (including Mr. Fabulous's office party but not including my office party which, thankfully, is during working hours). Everyone wants to know about the little one, so Christmas cards are a priority. (Not that I've managed to get them out each year - or even most years. But it's on the radar screen and a stress factor.) This year my birthday is nowhere near Thanksgiving, so it feels a little bit lost in all the rush. There's no time to do a party - we're just going out for dinner. Which was at my request, but still feels a little anticlimactic. And finally, because I'm in the early stages of the new job, I'm accumulating vacation at a glacial pace. What's more, I'm not taking the vacation that I have accrued because I'm saving it for maternity leave for the time that the CCAA finally gets to our LID and we are able to adopt again. Of course, at the rate the CCAA has been making matches lately, I'm starting to think that day may never come.

I know it sounds like I'm complaining - and maybe I am a little - but I do know that everything stressful about the holiday season is either (A) because of other things in my life that are wonderful and that I wouldn't give up for the world or (B) due to things in my life that are changing and that will change in the future and give me a little breathing room. But the fact remains that I am in a funk this morning. Hopefully tomorrow will be better.

I am unobservant

2007-11-14T14:36:00.000-08:00

I have decided I must be one of the most unobservant people in the world. This should not come as a huge surprise to anyone who knows me. I have perpetual tunnel vision - I get caught up in the “zone” of whatever I am doing and the rest of the world could come crashing down around me and I wouldn’t notice. Because of this I am afraid to read a book to myself while my daughter is awake. I fear that while I am lost in my book, she will find something in the house that wasn’t completely child proofed and kill herself.

You should know that there is a precedent in my life that justifies this fear. When I was about two years old my mother left me in the charge of my diabetic father and my 13-year old cousin. When she came back a while later, I was in the fireplace getting soot and ashes all over the place while my father was unconscious in the kitchen after having an insulin reaction. And my cousin? She was reading the whole time and hadn’t noticed a thing.

So today, I noticed for the first time that the leaves on the tree outside of my office window had turned yellow. Not just some of the leaves and not just a little yellow-ish. All of them. Completely yellow. And I never noticed that they were starting to turn even though I have only been in this office a couple of months and even though each day I gaze out the window and sigh with happiness about the fact that I finally have a window office.

Sigh.

Planning = GOOD

2007-11-13T11:42:00.001-08:00

So, yesterday was one of those delightful government holidays that mean I get the day off of work even though there are none of the expectations that come with a real “holiday.” I love those days. I get a day to bum around and hang out with the Cutest Thing and it’s generally pretty fun. Yesterday, however, was less fun than normal because of my lack of planning. Sigh.
I had envisioned a mommy –daughter day starting with a haircut for the C.T. at the local kiddie salon, followed by a field trip to the local toy emporium to wander about and start to make a wishlist for Christmas, then some time wandering through the mall to look at the (really much to early, but I’m starting to get used to it) holiday decorations and a nice lunch. All of this was to be accomplished in time to go home for the normal nap time so as to cause the least interference possible with her normal schedule.

All would have been fine, except for the fact that I neglected to make an appointment at the kiddie salon near the mall. I’ve never had a problem with just dropping into the one by our house, so I figured it shouldn’t be a problem, right? WRONG! First of all, after driving a half an hour to get to the mall, I spent another half an hour tooling around the surrounding area trying the find the [expletive deleted] salon because I had never been there before and the streets around the mall are so twisty and messed up that just having an address isn’t enough. Plus which, it was about a mile down the road and on the other side of the freeway from where the mapping website said it was. Further, even though I tried calling four times as I was driving around, nobody answered the phone and the voice mail message did not give directions.

Then, once we finally found the place, it turns out they were booked solid all day long. They kindly asked if they could call some of the other locations to get me in, and without thinking, I said sure – I’d be able to go to the one right by my house. Lo and behold, that one can get us in right away. So, we jump back into the car and drive the half hour back to our neighborhood. Needless to say, by this time the C.T. is getting a bit antsy and tired of being in the car. I promise her candy after the haircut, which stems the tide of the impending toddler tantrum a little. Of course, while we are driving there it occurs to me that it would have been smarter to ask for an after-nap appointment so we could do the rest of our mall-centered bonding that morning. But it was too late for second thoughts, so I drove on.

Fortunately, after that, the day went smoothly. The haircut turned out well. The promised lollipop was a hit, and the rest of the (shortened) mall bonding morning went well. Of course, we could have skipped the trip to the toy store because there were absolutely no surprises about which toys she gravitated toward. Anything with princesses, ponies, or anything that was pink or purple. Sigh. The “p” years are upon us with a vengeance.

So, today I am back at work. I’m sure there could be some great philosophical lesson beyond proper planning for yesterday, but my brain hurts from thinking about how much gas I must have burned driving back and forth, and so I can’t think of it now. Maybe tomorrow.

Peer pressure - good, bad or indifferent

2007-11-07T11:14:00.000-08:00

OK, I want to start by acknowledging that yesterday's phone call from Mr. Fabulous probably wasn't as funny as I thought it was when it happened. I thought about deleting the entry, but realized that if I second guess every entry after I post it, this blog will go nowhere. So, there you go. No do-overs.

On to today's thoughts. I've been thinking about peer pressure - usually thought to be bad, but is it always? I don't think so. My three year old daughter, the Cutest Thing in the whole world, in my (unbiased) opinion, LOVES dresses. To the point of throwing fits if she is forced by below-freezing temperatures to wear jeans. I believe this stems, at least in part from the fact that everyone says "Oh, what a cute dress" every time she wears one.

In the fit-throwing moments, I get frustrated and want to say “it doesn’t matter if your clothes are cute – they just need to be warm.” This whole caring what other people think was so foreign to me when I was young. In fact, I used to be proud of the fact that I didn’t care about what people thought. However, to be honest, it is probably truer to say that I didn’t notice what people thought. I lived in a little mental bubble of my own creation and took no notice of what was going on around me. As you would expect, I was a very odd child.

However, at some point in my life, I realized that caring – that noticing – what people think about you is the basis for the social skills that you need to be a functioning part of society. I still struggle with many of the social niceties that seem to come so naturally to others. I guess I’m grateful that Miss C.T. will probably not have the same difficulties “fitting in” that I had growing up. Of course, she will have different difficulties that I will have to try to help her to navigate. I imagine the use of the phrase "if all of your friends jumped off of a cliff . . ." is to be expected on several occasions in the future. But, in the meantime, I guess I’ll just keep a look-out for cute, warm, winter dresses.

True story

2007-11-06T14:52:00.000-08:00

Scene: random government office.

[cell phone rings]
[Meg looks at caller ID - it's her beloved spouse, Mr. Fabulous]

Meg: Hello?
Mr. Fabulous: Sorry, wrong number!
Meg: Huh???

------

I understand he dialed my number by mistake - but it sure threw me for a loop for a second!

Imperfection

2007-11-06T09:51:00.000-08:00

I just got back from the doctor, who confirmed that I am experiencing the beginnings of hearing loss. Not enough to justify doing anything about it right now - but enough to explain my difficulties understanding people at restaurants and parties and enough to warrant a follow up exam next year.

I tell you, sometimes I feel like my body is just falling apart. I've worn glasses since I was 2, My feet and joints are becoming stiffer and stiffer each morning, and now this. Now I'm going to actually have to start taking care of my body, Grrr!

On the plus side, this seems like the perfect subject for the inaugural post on this blog - which will chronicle the minutiae of my day to day life with belly-gazing reflections on my imperfect life to date and contemplation (and celebration) of where to go from here.

So, welcome!

Meg