Friends « American Family

One is the _____est* number

Tomorrow, something very exciting is going to happen: I am going to be alone for EIGHT full hours.

Even better than that, I am using those eight blissful hours of solitude to drive to North Carolina to visit a friend. And get this, NO KIDS are coming with me! I will be without my children for FOUR DAYS.

I can’t even begin to tell you how excited I am. Since we adopted L, I have NOT slept away from home without her. Sure, sure, she has spent some nights at my parents’ house in the past year, but *I* haven’t been away from home without her at ALL. And now I get three whole nights and four whole days!

We are going to watch dvds, go to the beach and generally relive our days as childfree party girls.

(Ok, to be honest, that is a bit of an exaggeration. Technically, we will only be childfree until my friend’s son comes home from his dad’s at 7:30 each night. And we won’t really be partying per se, but we will eat ice cream and watch some movies! Without my kids!)

Seriously, I can’t wait to get on the road. I expect to come home having reclaimed a small but significant chunk of my brain. You know, that part that is constantly being eaten by the children.

*The title of this post should probably be One is the Exciting-est Number!

Hoping for miracles.

The terrible tragedies in Myanmar and China are weighing heavily on my heart. If they weren’t enough, we have two medical crises that are hitting close to home.

My uncle has had a heart valve condition most of his life. He recently had what should have been a pretty low-risk surgery, but it was botched somehow and both his heart and kidneys were severely damaged. Just this week, he was admitted to a new hospital far from home and 90% of his heart was removed. He is currently surviving with a completely artifici*al heart. My uncle has always been one of the most fit and athletic people in our family. He is only about 45 years old and his youngest son is 6 years old. It is difficult to imagine him being so ill. In the best case scenario, he will be living in the hospital for the next 3-6 months. They are hoping that he can survive with the art*ificial heart long enough to make it onto the heart transplant list.

We also have friends who are facing a medical crisis with their baby girl. (I mentioned them a while back.) The last few months have been a rollercoaster for them. Right now, they are facing a potentially life-saving surgery, which may also be very risky. They are currently taking turns sleeping and living at the hospital, while the other takes care of their older son. I can’t begin to imagine how difficult it must be.

I am not religious and I don’t really pray, but I do believe in the power of energy. I am writing this to put my hopes for health, safety and miracles out in the universe.

Chicago

So. We are back from our Long LONNNNG weekend in Chicago. We had a great time and I am totally exhausted.

I won’t do a play by play, but the highlights for those of you who were not there (yes, I know this is pretty much everyone who reads this blog).

These are the lovely and delightful friends who kindly let us stay at their house. On the right is Animal and on the left is Annamal. Animal is one of A’s oldest friends. We don’t get to see them often enough so even the little bit of time we saw them this weekend was like a huge bonus. Aren’t they cute as a button?

One of the funniest things that happened during our visit was seeing M hook up with Chicagomama’s oldest daughter C. M & C became friends back in February when the Mini-KLB meeting happened at my house. Since that time, M has asked over and over when she would get to see C again. Once they saw each other, M & C were stuck together like glue.

Well, almost like glue. At one point, poor C tried to pay attention to another kid and M wouldn’t stand for it. She actually tackled C and laid right on top of her to keep her from talking to someone else. It was way out of control. I wish I had a photo of that, but instead, here is a quick photo of M and C as they spend most of the weekend.

Because we were staying with friends, we missed some of the zoo action with the hotel people on Friday. We did managed to squeeze in a trip to IKEA with ChicagoMama and Shelba though. Though it was not KLB related, that night we went out for some west African food and it was fabulous.

On Saturday, Chicago Mama hosted the whole lot of us at her beautiful home. It was very loud with about 12 toddlers and their parents trying to get to know each other. I had a great time, but I was left feeling unsatisified. I have a hard time jumping into conversations in such big crowds and there were a bunch of people I wished I could have talked to more. Also, I never imagined so many of the KLB were so damn TALL and sophisticated. Being rather short myself, I was left feeling like the frumpy little sister jumping up and down saying "HEY! Over here! Talk to me!" But it was a blast.

We also went out for dim sum in Chinatown the next day. I was told that going to a restaurant with 30 other people would prepare me for our adoption trip. All I have to say about that is WOW. Thirty people is a LOT of people. I saw really rude ogling of a couple adoptive families that really rubbed me the wrong way (more about that in a later post if I remember). We also told the staring Chinese family at the table next to us that all the little Asian girls were A’s children. They were very, very confused. "He is very tired" we said in chinese. Heh.

After a long ride home, we are trying to settle into our normal routine. After seeing all those beautiful kids, though, I have to say I am more anxious than ever to get our referral. Big smacky kisses to all the KLB. I hope we do it again soon!

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Right now, the son of one of my best friends is in a very serious surgery. He is only 4 months old.

If you can spare any good thoughts, please send them their way.

Painful Reality

Tonight was M’s Chinese tutoring session. Lately, she has been a bit difficult and avoidant which means that J (the tutor) and I spend a lot of time chatting. I mentioned the Tank Man documentary that was on PBS last week.

She had never seen this photo before.

I had tivoed the show so I thought I would show her the beginning so she would know what I was talking about. We ended up watching about an hour of the documentary, the parts about the student uprising in China in 1989. When it happened, J was about 8 years old and living in Beijing. She knew that something had happened with students then, but had no idea about the extent of the situation. She didn’t know that civilians died, she didn’t know that one in ten Beijing residents participated in the protests, she didn’t know that the government of her country had kept the truth about this and a million other things from her.

It was really hard to watch J watching this show as the realization that everything she had told about everything might have been lies. Then she realized that her parents had also never told her anything about Tiananmen Square. They never told her about the cultural revolution. They never told her that her teachers were lying to her. The only thing they ever told her was to stay in the USA and not move back.

She was visibly upset by the whole thing, particularly the fact that her parents had helped maintain the facade. I tried to explain to her that her parents had lived through the cultural revolution and probably knew that ignorance can be safer and may even save your life. Maybe they didn’t tell her because they love her and wanted to protect her. Also, her ignorance is not unsual. When A taught in China, his students (all about J’s age) denied that anything happened. In private the professors at the university would talk about what they knew or had seen, but most tried to avoid the topic.

We talked about it for a long long time. We talked about the little A and I knew about the 1989 student demonstrations. We talked about the Cultural Revolution. We talked about the one child policy, freedom of the press and how other Asian countries have transitioned from authoritarian type dictatorships to democracies.

She was angry, sad and embarrassed that she never questioned what she was told before. We talked about how she is going to have to learn to be a critical thinker now, because no one taught her how to be a critical consumer of information when she was growing up. I sent her home with a copy of Wild Swans,told her to read China Wakes and told her to watch some documentaries from the library when she is ready.

It was a lot for her to digest in one evening.

One is the _____est* number

Hoping for miracles.

Chicago

Painful Reality

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