14

I never realized the symbolism the number 14 would hold for me but it finally hit me today. My husband declared on Valentine's day, two years ago, that he was ready to adopt a child (and that was my present!) Our Social Worker came to the house on the fourteenth to interview us for the first of two post-placement visits. July 14 is the day Jack was born. Makena was born on the 28th (a multiple of fourteen) and, although she came into our lives on August 15 in China, it was technically August 14 in North America, as far as our family and friends were concerned.

Six months have flown by, give or take a nervous breakdown and the onset of adult-acne, and today marks Mak's sixteen months on earth. She has officially been with us longer than she was with her foster mother (5 months) or in the care of the Social Welfare Institute (4 months). On June 16th, she will have been with us longer (10 months) than she hasn't (9.5 months). I think it's referred to as the "crossover day". I often think about her biological mother and her foster mother and I wonder if they still think about her often and wonder what might have become of her. I also find myself looking at referral photographs of children from Chongqing and I wonder if she has a sister who might have joined the ranks of abandonned babies. I know I'm crazy but admitting it is half the battle.

For the record, Makena is hysterical. She has a true sense of humor, loves to be chased, and has just discovered spinning on her feet -- which gives me high hopes that she might show a propensity toward figure skating! She is an acrobatic escape artist and will attempt to climb anything that presents a challenge. She dives head first down the slide at the park (I grab the back of her shirt at the last moment to stop her from flying off). She can be read to all day long. She pronounces the "k" part of book, when requesting a story. She officially says "Mama" when calling me and "Da" when calling her dad. Jack remains "Dat" and "Uh Oh" is huge, as well as her attempt to recreate the sound an elephant makes.

She walks around her room pointing to anything elephant, saying "booooooooo". Tiger remains the love of her life and I invariably find her tossing food overboard, saying "uh oh," and trying to hustle out of her high chair so that she can eat her food off the floor with Tiger. I know how gross this reads, but there is a cute factor to it and, besides, she hardly ever succeeds. Although I can see how she's obviously been rewarded in her attempts enough for me to post about it.

Today, I will surrender ALL of Makena's original documents when I apply for her first American passport. We're talking Chinese passport, birth certificate, abandonment certificate, adoption decree and her American Certificate of citizenship! It is a slightly nerve racking venture. I have been assured by the government worker (I waited twenty-five minutes to speak to) that all those things would be returned. We have a month to go until Jack's Spring Break and barring any unforseen clerical delays, we will be headed south, to Mexico.

Since Makena is still under the age of two, I am not purchasing a seat for her. Her travel tantrums will be part of the web of memories I have of her youth. Besides, Jack's waist is still smaller than mine so he can share the seat with her. Ha! I just hope the passport comes, or the next post will be about cursing the system.

Isabelle
PS The first picture was taken at the zoo, the second, is of Makena wearing the dress I brought her to wear on gotcha day and that se could not fit into 6 months ago. The third, the joys of driving and the last, an elephant sighting.

Team Mom

How I missed the sign up sheets at school, the ads in the paper and the placards posted all over town for an entire month, shows you what kind of vacuum I was living in. I almost blew it by not registering Jack for little league this season. He completely missed the official try-outs but by some miracle (the happenstance of trying to schedule a sleep-over with another baseball loving friend of his) I got wind of the make-up trial and managed to get Jack (with less than 12 hours notice) to the last selection round, in the last hour, on the last possible day. Had I missed that window, no amount of pleading, crying or cash would have made a difference. Zip, nada. No baseball for Jack this year. The only sport that would have been left to play in our house would have been hunting, i.e., "Open Season" on Isabelle, run for the hills-cardio, you name it.

Where was Nancy Reagan when I needed her? I was so desperate to ingratiate myself with the uptight league official who took Jack's application and asked me why I hadn't checked the box "will volunteer" that I agreed to be "Team Mom." She assured me that I wouldn't have to do anything more than shoot off a couple of e-mails and be the liaison between the coach and the parents. Half an hour a week of my time, tops.

Wrong! Six hours of my life have already been sucked out of me this week, writing out (ridiculous) practice schedules, cajoling parents to practice with their kids, and now being ordered to attend official league meetings!!!!! And let's not forget Makena and her precarious nap schedule and weaving that into the picture (and the horses... and the tortoise).

It just blew my mind (and this is post the "get my act together" epiphany from a couple weeks back). I'd quit but I don't want to set a bad example. I'll just practice saying "no" to my husband. For some reason, that seems to be a lot easier than saying it to strangers.

Now that I have twenty-twenty hindsight, the aerobic benefits of being hunted would have been welcomed.

What is wrong with me?

Is-a-sucker
PS This is what we do to Makena's hair when daddy is at work.

Where in the world is my mother?

I miss my mom. She died fifteen years ago and today would have been her birthday. I'm not quite sure exactly where she is right now. I'm not talking about the Grand Central Station in the sky, heaven, or whatever you believe happens to you after you die. I'm talking about her remains. She was cremated right after she passed away in 1991 and for the longest time she was kept in an urn, in her armoire, in our family home. That is until my sister decided to remodel the ancestral home last year. Since everything was going to be put in storage while the house was being revamped, my dad decided to take my mother on a little "road trip" to Spain for the summer. Yes, you read correctly, my father packed my mother's ashes up and shipped her off to Europe with him.


I was caught up in the "waiting for Makena's referral" vortex, my sister was caught up in tossing, organizing and selling forty years' worth of accumulation and before we knew it, dad had slipped out with the Samsonite and with mom in tow. By the time we came up for air, Dad was sipping Sangria on the Costa del Sol, my sister was up to her ears in plaster dust and I was -- come to think of it -- I never did come up for air, I was still in the vortex.

My mother's French cousins were called in for a "closure" intervention and quickly offered up the family mausoleum in this little village in the Pyrennees. It made sense, Mom could finally be laid to rest in a place that had meant a lot to her as a child and where she would be surrounded by her relatives.

OK, so we had about a five month window when this could have all gone down, reasonably calmly and in an organized fashion. I could have torn myself away, flown to France, hooked up with my dad and sister and checked out where mom would be laid to rest. But that would have been too simple, too planned. For months nothing happened and just when I get the "last call" to travel to China to formally adopt Makena, my dad realizes that his six months in Spain are up and that he has to come home. So he lights a fire under his posterior and contacts the cousins (via letter because a stamp is cheaper than a call and he didn't have their E-mail) and the cousins quickly whip up a mass, an interment and a luncheon (attended by the mayor of the village,) giving us two weeks' notice to attend.

Classic, I'm in Chongqing (we've had Makena about two days) when I get word that this is going down. I'm told via E-mail from my sister, that Dad is on his way to the Pyrennees with the urn and that she is scrambling to get airfare on zero notice, to be there in time. My husband and I debate the merits of booking me and Makena on a flight to Paris from Guangzhou and returning home after the burial, but then we realize that even if we moved heaven and earth to get me there, that I would not make it on time and that, furthermore, we would have had to re-adopt Makena in the States! Bottom line, I come to the conclusion that mom has been dead a long time and that she would forgive me for not being there.

So what does this really have to do with Chinese adoptions? Nothing. Except that six months have gone by since we've had Makena (and the ashes were relocated,) it's my mother's birthday, and I happen to read in one of the adoption forums that a Chinese girl, with the help of her Dutch parents, was able to track down her biological family in Chongqing, China. And I just lost it. It made me cry. I immediately thought about Makena and what something like that would mean to her...I started wondering about what kind of courage it took to undertake that kind of hunt -- the whole "if you love something, set it free" thing and I just cried some more and then my thoughts turned back to my mom and how I still missed her and how I wished that her grandchildren could have known her. And where the heck was she?

And then I just let it go because I realized that I know where she is. I've known it all along.

Happy birthday, mom.

Isabelle

PS The picture posted is the last photograph that was ever taken of my mom and me (about a month before she passed away.) It's damaged because it was lost at sea and then, by some miracle, was found when it washed up on the shore. Now, that's a LONG story!