Uncategorized « American Family

If you thought THAT was crossing the line…

Sorry, I would share these bon bons I am eating, but unfortunately I am neck deep in bullshit right here and can’t get up.

Seriously, I was letting it go, really I was, but then you had to go and call me sophisticated and said I have an air of superority.. Damn, sophisticated? I was shooting for sarcastic.

Before I go on, I know there are a lot of new readers here. Readers who are very very interested in the fact that we found our daughter’s birth family in China. I write about that. I spill my fucking guts here about how HARD it has been. And it is. It is really really hard. But if you want rainbows and butterflies, this blog is not for you. First of all, I am and have always been sarcastic and snarky.

Do you see that Kind Blog badge over there on my sidebar? No? It is because I don’t give a rat’s ass if you think I am a big old meanie.

This is the story of the most important thing I have ever done in my entire life: Giving our daughter access to the family she was ripped away from. Sharing our daughter with a family who lost their much-loved child. Embracing total strangers from another culture and making them a part of our family.

I am telling our story here because I know we are at the beginning of a long, long line of adoptive parents and Chinese adoptees who are going to be walking this same path. Our story is important and I sacrifice our privacy because people need to know that searching and reunion is no red-thread, rainbows and butterflies fairy tale.

I read all this adoptive parent bullshit and it makes me cringe. Should we light a candle to honor our daughter’s birthfamily on her birthday? How should we honor our child’s birthmother on Mother’s Day? Reading “I love you like Crazy Cakes” and idealizing this fantasy birth mother conveniently on the other side of the planet.

Honor my ass.

I have spent the last few days reading excuse after excuse about why people don’t want to search.

You can’t search because you have to fucking wash your kids’ socks? Please. Let me be there when you explain that to you adult child. I would love to show them the statlog of how many times you have clicked on my blog in the past 24 hours.

And how much time do you think searching took me? I think I averaged about one hour a MONTH total calling our translator, composing emails to our contacts, collecting documents. I spent some extra time googling stuff because I enjoy it and I am good at it, but I still do that now to help out other people who are searching. But the actual in the trenches searching, the time it took was negligible. The most dedicated searching adoptive mom I know is a single working mom with two (soon to be three) kids. If anyone doesn’t have time, SHE doesn’t have time.

The people who say they would search but can’t afford it? You can’t google? You can’t trade some english practice with a chinese speaker for some translation assistance? You can’t cut back on one soccer league season or a few dinners out to pay for a searcher? You found $20,000 to pay for an adoption when it was YOUR priority.

The way adoptive parents “listen to adult adoptees” when it suits their own agenda? Well, HERE is an adult adoptee who is calling these aparents on the shenanigans I have been reading for the next few days. Who is quoting her? And HERE is a comment from an adult adoptee (SangShil) saying she would trade the choice to search for any information about her birth family that could have been found when the trail was fresh.

I have seen adoptive parents break out in HIVES when I told them I was searching. I know families in reunion whose children’s friends’ adoptive parent will no longer let them play together because they don’t want their kids to know finding Chinese birth families are possible. You get squicky about searching and you think you can shelter your kids from the fact that it is possible? Well, you are fooling yourselves.

We are out here. We are coming to your FCC, your adoption playgroups, your kid’s classroom. Our kids will have pictures of their birth families on their 1st grade family trees. Your kids and my kids will go to Chinese heritage camp together. When you tell them you can’t search for their birth families in China, they will know you are lying. When you tell them you are too busy? They will know you really just didn’t want to be bothered.

Don’t get me wrong, there are some good reasons not to search. Reasons like “I don’t want to” or ” I am not ready” or “I can’t commit to maintaining a relationship on my child’s behalf.” And I swear to you, I DON’T WANT YOU TO SEARCH because I don’t answer to YOUR kids. I answer to MINE.

But giving these bullshit excuses? You denigrate the SACRED RESPONSIBILITY we have as adoptive parents to put our children’s best interests in front of our own convenience and desires. You insult the intelligence of adoptees who will see through these excuses and have to pretend they believe it was all about them. You dishonor the love both my daughter’s families have for her to struggle on this journey together.

Because you don’t have enough TIME? What the fuck ever.

House Progress.

I have been working hard this week putting away the furniture and massive amounts of house stuff my parents (finally!) gave back to me . Then I got the house together to show to a friend of a friend.

It is finally cleaned up enough that I can post some pictures. It is still a major amount of work to be done, so let’s consider these to be work-in-progress photos. When possible, I am posting before and in-progress pictures.

Living Room

Changes: Floors stained & refinished. Trim Painted. Poop brown wall painted off white like most of the house. Lights replaced (not visible). This is the decorated half of the room. The other half is sadly decorationless.

Desperately in need of a new couch and chairs (instead of a couch and loveseat). These old couches are a disgrace. When we are actually preparing to sell the house, I will probably us a TV armoire I have in storage rather than that TV stand. And also, please send decorations, quick!

Dining Room

Added chandelier, floors, painted trim, etc. Desperately in need of a rug. because there is so much dark furniture and dark floor that there is no color. That sideboard is going to my friend Peg’s the next time I drive down south and I have a variety of plates to hang on the wall instead of what you see there.

From the kitchen doorway

Through the door on the left is what I affectionately like to call “the world’s smallest playroom.”

Playroom (formerly known as the Vestible.)

I don’t have any before pictures, but it was a very tiny room with a hallway that was a second entrance to the kitchen.

Half Bath

Off the playroom, is the downstairs half bath. We closed off the hallway to the kitchen and moved a door, so it has a weird little antechamber, but it is a huge improvement. I don’t have any before pics, but trust me, it was GROSS. It smelled like pee and had a nasty, stained sink that was better suited to a gas station bathroom than a house.

This is the shelf that is trying to make use of the space. If you ever visit my house, the extra toilet paper is hidden in that box on the bottom shelf.

For as small as this room is, it was a bitch and a half to get finished. The wall was closed with drywall, the door & frame had to be relocated, the walls had to have a weird tile pattern patched and sanded out, and a new sink and toilet were added and the whole thing was painted. Unfortunately, it was a nightmare trying to find a vanity to fit in that tiny place and also the plumbing comes in from the side and goes out diagonally (don’t ask…old house) so I couldn’t use a pedestal. I just went with a wall mounted sink to just get it over with. I hate the pipes and regret the decision, but the plumber was big nightmare fiasco so I am moving on for the time being.

Kitchen

Before

Now closed off door where the fridge is.

The kitchen is a work in progress. So far, we have added new lights over the sink, undercounter lights,new knobs, new appliances and painted it. It doesn’t look so bad in the picture, but the yellow on the walls was incredibly irritating (though it isn’t quite so bad in the pictures). It made me want to punch someone. It is hard to tell from the picture, but the light blueish gray I painted the walls, makes the cabinets’ green not nearlyso hideous. Also, the counters are not orange in person. They are a light colored butcher block.

The next step is to remove a cabinet from beside the sink and install a dishwasher and new sink. Then, we will move that cabinet and a new one to create a new counter top by the fridge. And maybe I will add a new cabinet above and next to the stove. Then all the cabinets will be painted white. (hallelujah!) We will also need a new floor and new countertops on the new cabinets. In this pic without the green cabinets, you can see how much better the kitchen will be once they are painted white.

I am leaning toward keeping the butcher block and just getting block to match on the new sections. Do we agree or disagree that butcher block is OK in a newly remodeled kitchen??? It would save us thousands of dollars.

Also, I was going to put in dark gray tile, but I am now rethinking it. Maybe I should go with a light greige or beige that won’t show dirt as much? In the pictures, the beige of this (old gross) linoleum looks pretty good.

L is clambering for my attention, so I will do the upstairs in another post.

back to the family

Before the worst of Mr. A’s illness hit (and I should mention he is still sick so it is likely he has a virus or maybe giardia or something similar), we had a lovely day visiting with his Mom’s extended family. She has a LOT of family.

MIL grew up as one of 6 sisters and 5 brothers (I think), from two wives (consecutive, I think/hope). Her mother was the second wife, but she was somewhat close to some of her half siblings who were close to her age.

When we were in Taipei, we visited with one half brother who was totally awesome. He was like a little Chinese leprechaun. He was a spritely, smiley guy who is now semi-retired. I don’t remember what his original job was, I think some kind of factory management or something, but now he works part time giving Chinese reflexology massages. He also wore a lovely purple neckband and wristbands that he claimed had special properties because they were ionized. He kept saying “I know it works, because Look at me! I am 70 years old, but I look 50!” (No, he really didn’t!)

The rest of the extended family who could make it came to a family banquet in Taichung on saturday. MIL and Ed/Steve were there as were maybe 5 of her siblings. Some of them were quite old. Ooooold, old. It was the first time Mr. A had been to Taiwan with his mom, so it was the first time he met many of them. There was a lot of toasting and a good amount of drinking for lunch with a bunch of old people. Some of their children and grandchildren also attended. Despite the language barrier (mine and somewhat Mr. A’s because they spoke a lot of Taiwanese instead of mandarin), it was warm and welcoming.

The meal took a LONG time though. According to M’s calculations, over 2 hours from when we sat down until the finished bringing us food. The length of the meal prompted a spontaneous outburst of Chinese from M who said “Taiwanren e hen duo le!” (Taiwanese people eat a LOT!)

After that, we went with MIL and her younger brother to visit Mr. A’s maternal grandmother’s resting place. I don’t know what else to call it. It is a big building where they keep the remains of dead people and where you can go to pay your respects. You don’t actually pay respects at the actual remains, though. They call up a picture of the dead person and you do your ancestor worship in front of a TV screen.

It caused a bit of a bruhaha that Mr. A was insisting on visiting his maternal grandmother, because he is only supposed to worship his paternal side. There was much discussion with his uncle (who was the rightful heir, I guess) about whether or not it was inappropriate and if Mr. A was trying to steal extra blessings from his Amah that rightfully belonged to the uncle. After much insisting by Mr. A, eventually, the uncle agreed to take us.

We had to take a separate cab and or cab driver accidentally took us to the wrong mausoleum. Coincidentally, the wrong one was actually the one where Mr. A’s paternal ancestors are located. We finally figured it out and got to the right place where MIL, uncle and aunty showed us how to use a credit card to pull up the correct file. Then we all lit incense and prayed for good fortune and health (and I suspect from Mr. A, wealth).

It was a completely pleasant day. Color me surprised.

A brief tale of two Ds.

This morning I learned that the DNA test shows the probability that the birth parents we located are in fact L’s birth parents is 99.999995427574%. In layman’s terms, that means that yes, they are her birth parents.

I am not at all surprised, but I will admit to being relieved that the samples we sent worked. (More on that later.)

I would elaborate, but today I can’t because we are headed into the belly of the beast: Hong Kong Disneyland.

I haven’t said much about my feelings regarding the big D lately (a sampling of previous rants here and here.), but I will just summarize them by saying it is amazing what parents will do for their kids.

Hold me.

Backlogged Yangshuo Pictures

I am going back and uploading some pictures from China that I didn’t get around to posting before.

This is L holding two cormorants. Mr. A and the girls stumbled upon this fisherman guy in Yangshuo and he kindly let them hold the birds.

This tout at the Li River followed us around for over an hour and wouldn’t take no for an answer. I finally got so annoyed I had to yell at her so she would go away. It was not my finest moment.

Mr. A and the girls added a good luck charm to the ones that have been hanging in a temple in Xingping for many many years.

In more stealth Mao photo collecting: This house in Xingping doesn’t stop with just Mao’s photo. They have Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin. I am guessing they are some hardcore communists.

I took a Chinese cooking class from the Yangshuo Cooking School. It was money well spent. There are some aspects of Chinese cooking that have always confused me, but now I have a better understanding of why and what I am supposed to do. The class started with a trip to the local market. This is where the people buy their meat and produce. We declined to visit the dogs-as-meat section of the market, but it is a delicacy in the area. I can’t get the pictures of the food I cooked to upload, but if I figure it out later, I will add them.

If you thought THAT was crossing the line…

House Progress.

back to the family

A brief tale of two Ds.

Backlogged Yangshuo Pictures

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