A few weeks ago, (ok, maybe SEVERAL weeks ago) we celebrated Mia’s first ever American-style birthday. She started school in August, and had heard a few of her classmates tales of their birthday parties, so it was pretty easy to get her excited about her own. Not to mention that her sister was probably the most influential of us all.
We could only guess what sort of birthday celebration Mia may have had while living in her orphanage. Whatever it had been, the event we were planning would most likely be completely different. So, we tried to talk with her, and let her know what to expect. We have a great group of friends with children close in age, so the guest list was easy. Not wanting to overwhelm our sweet girl, we decided to have an old-fashioned party here at home. Surprisingly, our biggest challenge was planning the food. What do you serve at a kid’s party when the birthday girl doesn’t like cake? Or chocolate? Or sweets of any kind? I settled on pumpkin bread cupcakes, topped with a faintly sweet cream cheese for frosting.
Fortunately, like I mentioned earlier, we have a fantastic group of friends. All of the children sat politely around Mia, and gently encouraged her as she opened all of her gifts.
0 Comments
Now that I’m a mother of two girls that don’t look at all like sisters, I get a lot of questions. The questions that come from strangers are sometimes rude and annoying, but I try to remember that they simply come from a place of curiosity. Other questions come from our close friends and family – people who know us, and genuinely care. The most frequent of these questions is “So, how is Sydney handling all this?” Taken at face value, that might sound like someone fishing for some juicy gossip. But, when asked from a place of love and concern, it’s a fair question. After all, Sydney has been an only child for seven years now. It’s reasonable to imagine she might take issue with the new kid who has invaded her turf. Fortunately for all of us, Sydney has been asking for a sister ever since she was old enough to say the words. We did our very best to keep her informed and involved as the adoption process unfolded, so Mia’s eventual appearance was certainly no big surprise. Still, I’m sure the IDEA of a sister was much more glamorous than the REALITY. It has been immensely helpful that the girls are relatively close in age, and they are ready playmates for each other. I have no doubt that I would be writing a very different story if we had adopted an infant! As it is, their relationship is growing and strengthening through their play. They color, and draw, and ride their scooters in circles in the street. They dress up, and pretend to be fairy princesses, or pet shop owners, or chefs in their own restaurant. I am overwhelmed sometimes by the details of their imaginative worlds. Of course there are quarrels, these are children, after all. But, I am thankful to say that these days in our house, we have a lot more laughter than we ever have before. Ok, that title sounds a bit dramatic. But in all fairness, there have been some ways in which our adoption process HAS felt like such a journey, at least where the legal formalities have been concerned. Yesterday, we crossed the finish line. At 2:00 p.m. in the afternoon, on the fourth floor of the Jacksonville Courthouse, we appeared in front of a judge and requested the State of Florida to recognize our foreign adoption. Mia was all smiles! By completing this step, we ensured that Mia has full rights to our property and estate in the event of our untimely demise – equal to that of our biological child. She will be issued a Florida Birth Certificate, listing us as her legal parents. This isn’t essential for her now (our legal guardians would never deny her rightful inheritance), but will come in very handy in the future when she wants a driver’s license, or to apply to college. And, it just seemed like a no-brainer to us to get this taken care of now, while we are still familiar with all of those pesky Chinese documents, and we know where we’ve placed them. Time has a funny way of blurring little details. Personally, I am famous for putting things in clever places (so I won’t forget where I’ve put them), and then promptly forgetting that clever hiding place straightaway. I didn’t want to be scrambling ten years from now. As was our experience throughout this entire process, help came to us exactly when and where it was needed. In this instance, that help came from our local foreign adoption attorney Paul Consbruck. Check out his website here: http://www.adoptfla.com/ I can’t say enough good things about Paul. He and his wife have adopted two girls from China, and needless to say they were intimately knowledgeable about the process. He was kind and helpful on the personal side of this experience, and courteous and professional on the legal side. Until now, we (thankfully) haven’t had much experience with legal proceedings, and he did everything possible to keep it simple for us. Thank you, Paul! Unfortunately, Sydney was disappointed that she wasn’t present for the hearing. We explained that this was just for Mia, and that we didn’t want her (Sydney) missing school. When we went out for dinner to celebrate, Sydney had lots of questions about the day.
S: “Did the hammer sound scare Mia?” Me: “The hammer sound?” S: “Yeah, you know, the one the judge hits to call ‘order in the court!'” Sorry kiddo, no gavel at this hearing. Everyone who really knows us, knows that we are a family who loves to travel! Since bringing Mia back with us from China, we have deliberately stayed at home for the entirety of the summer. We just thought it would be best to give her as much time as possible to get used to being a member of our family, and to feel safe and secure in her new home. The girls will be going back to school very soon, so we really wanted to sneak away for a relaxing week at a resort in Cocoa Beach before the hustle of the school year began. Our transition has been going so well, we thought Mia would be just fine with a little getaway. After all, this is us. Travel is what we do. The day before we were scheduled to leave, I tried to explain to her what to expect. And to her credit, during my explanation, she seemed agreeable enough. But she’s four, so it’s really hard to tell how much she truly understood from our conversation. However, the next morning I could feel her anxiety mounting. I spoke calmly to her as I removed both girl’s clothing from the dresser and packed their joint suitcase. With every passing minute, Mia was growing ever more the cling-on, not letting me out of her sight. I held her. I rocked her. Nothing I could say or do would comfort her for long. Before I knew it, Mia had made her little self sick with anxiety. Yes, THAT kind of sick. And she soiled her underpants. Twice. We all gave her hugs and kisses, and lots of reassurance. To be honest, inwardly I was beginning to feel a bit anxious myself about the upcoming two hour car ride, when I remembered that I still had a few pairs of pull-ups from Sydney’s toilet training days. We all made a big deal about Mia’s special princess panties, and off we went. Gratefully, we arrived a few hours later at the resort without incident. This is a terrific family place, and today we are all relaxed and happy. In my earlier days as a mom, I would to do whatever I could, often going to great lengths, to spare my (then single) child any pain. Now that I’m more seasoned in my motherhood, I know that isn’t my job. We all experience discomfort, in a multitude of ways, throughout our lives. To set our children up for the expectation that they should never have to endure negative feelings, is setting them up for failure. As my wonderful friend Ingrid once told me, our job as mothers is not to take away our children’s pain, but instead to have the courage to be present with them in it, and to provide loving support as they learn to manage all of the complicated emotions that make us uniquely human. I hope I was able to do that for Mia yesterday. While we were in China, I received such positive responses to this blog! Now that we’re home, I thought my work with this project was finished. To my surprise, many people have encouraged me to continue writing about our experience, wanting to know how things are going moving forward. So, for those of you who are curious, here’s what’s happened over the past two months. We left Hong Kong on Monday, May 21. Over 30 hours later, we arrived home in Jacksonville. I was so glad to be home, I practically fell down and kissed the carpet! The two weeks following are little more than a blur of a memory, as we all came down with a nasty flu-like illness. Let me tell you that it was a long two weeks of living off of chicken soup, Gatorade and breakfast cereal. We can laugh about it now, and we joke that we all had the Hong Kong Flu. Who knows? Maybe we did. Personally, I’m going to blame the visit to the theme park for the infection. Once we emerged from the vise-like grip of illness, getting settled to our ‘new’ normal has been, well, surprisingly EASY. I would love to take credit for this, but in all good conscience, I cannot. I will tell you that I did my homework, and (I think) I was prepared for the worst. Internationally adopted kids can have a lot of transition issues involving food, sleep, culture shock – the possibilities are many. We are so thankful, and fortunate that our little Mia is such an easy kid. She has thrown herself into our lives with a joyful heart, and a playful spirit. She eats whatever we put in front of her, even if she doesn’t like it, and usually asks for more. She is eager to help around the house, almost to a fault. I am a big believer in giving children age appropriate household tasks, to instill a sense of responsibility and family unity. She sings as she sets the table for dinner in the evening, and she can fold clothes (almost) as well as I can. She loves a bath in the evening, and she sleeps deeply and peacefully every night. Our only challenge is keeping her safe, as everything here is new to her. For example, the first time she got out of the car, she grabbed the bare edge of the window, and tried to swing herself out! Thankfully, the window didn’t break, but that was when I fully realized how much teaching she was going to need, and quick! For all of our concerns of the language barrier, that seems to be dissolving right before our eyes. We’ve been home for about 10 weeks now, and it is impressive to say that she is functionally fluent. She speaks mostly in English, but peppered with Chinese. We understand her well, and others seem to be able to figure out what she’s talking about too, especially if one of us is there to provide some context. So typical, for any four year old. It’s amazing to watch her language blossom, and ironic to realize that she too, has trouble with some of our phonemic sounds – which causes her to pronounce certain words in ways that are stereotypical of the Chinese. For example, the sound of ‘r’ was very difficult at first, and ‘l’ comes out as more of a ‘w’. As with everything, practice, time and patience have been the keys to improvement. It’s Sunday, and today is our last full day in Hong Kong. We board an airplane tomorrow morning, which will bring us back to the good ‘ole US of A. Detroit is our port of entry, and barring any unforeseen events, Mia will become a US citizen there. We have a large brown envelope, carrying all of her citizenship documents. This envelope must arrive at immigration intact and unopened. We are guarding it like a precious jewel. To finish out our exploration of Hong Kong, we took a day trip to Lantau Island. We navigated the Hong Kong metro system relatively easily (this one wasn’t nearly as daunting as Tokyo), once we realized that the ticket machines only accepted payment in cash, and that cash had to be paid in coins. One way tickets for the four of us totaled $68 (Hong Kong dollars, not US). Do people here really have to carry that much change around if they want to use the Metro? This seemed very strange. Once we completed the 30 minute train ride to Lantau, we stood in a very long queue (the British word for line) to purchase our cable car tickets which would take us to the top of the island, and the Ngong Ping village. Hong Kong has only been back in the possession of the Chinese government since 1999, so everything here is still very British. We splurged for the glass-bottom cable car for our 25 minute ride to the top. The children loved watching the passing scenery through the floor, so the extra money was well spent. The village was cute, and very western, sporting the likes of Subway, Hagen-Daas, and of course, Starbucks. We picnicked under an umbrella covered table, before venturing towards the Tian Tan statue. This statue is the world’s tallest outdoor, seated bronze statue of the Buddha. Despite Communist rule, the predominant faith system here is Buddhism, followed by Islam in distant second. This statue of the Buddha is adjacent to the Po Lin Monastery, which is Hong Kong’s most predominant. Together, we climbed all 288 steps to the top. We did our best to respect the reverence of the monument dedicated to this great spiritual teacher, and we saw many people involved in silent, or chanting prayer. It’s Saturday, and we were looking for something fun to do with the kids here in Hong Kong. Believe it or not, in all of our explorations of Asia thus far, we have completely missed seeing what some might think of as the mascot of China – the Giant Panda. In our defense, we’ve been busy. Anytime you plan a trip, you have to make choices. You can’t see and do everything a place has to offer. There just isn’t enough time. With that said, I’ll admit that we chose not to go to the zoo in Beijing. In retrospect, that was probably a poor decision, as another couple from our adoption group reported that it was fabulous. Then, while we were in the Guang, we wanted to use one of our free days to go to the safari park located on the outskirts of the city. Unfortunately, we were outvoted by the other families, and we ended up going to the (boring) jade and pearl markets instead. It was beginning to look like we were not meant to see a Panda on this trip. So, in planning our day today, Chris excitedly introduced the possibility of going to Ocean Park for the day. “We can see some Giant Pandas there!” he said, as a way to sell me on the idea. I groaned. Oh God, not a theme park! I’ll be honest, I’m not a big fan. We live in Florida, so we go – a lot. Universal, SeaWorld, Disney, we’ve seen them all. I don’t know why, but my husband loves theme parks. I mean, LOVES THEM, loves them. As we discussed our possible theme park day, I could feel the dread churning around in my stomach. I don’t know for certain, but I think that maybe one of the deeper circles of hell involves an endless day at a foreign theme park in 100 degree heat and 98% humidity with two cranky children . . . Sometimes, there are things you must do for the person you love. Thankfully, we arrived right at the parks’ opening time. It was sunny, and the temperature was already rising. We made a beeline for the Panda exhibit, and made it there just in time for feeding. The habitat was large, and well kept, which made me feel a little better about paying to see the Panda prison. The Pandas themselves seemed peaceful and happy as we watched them munch their breakfast of bamboo. We spend the remainder of the day, doing all of the regular theme park stuff. Ocean Park is an interesting mix of a zoo, an aquarium, and a typical theme park with rides and such. We took the gondolas up to the top of the mountain, and saw beautiful vista views. We marveled at the exotic and colorful birds and fish. When it came time for lunch, we had some interesting choices to make. The ‘street’ vendors offered hot dogs, grilled squid, or spicy fish balls. Hmmm. We decided to skip those, and opted for a sit down restaurant complete with a/c. We enjoyed a relatively healthy meal of stir-fried chicken with ginger, and some barbecued pork dumplings. Yum! Best theme park food we’ve ever had. Despite all odds, and exceeding all expectations, Mia was fantastic. Everyday, as we are getting to know each other, I am so grateful that she is ours. She has a lightness of spirit and a real sparkle in her soul. If I were her age, with her background, this would have to have been (another) overwhelming experience. Yet she took it all in stride, with a huge smile on her face. I have a feeling that I have a lot to learn from this little girl. “You can’t always get what you want” at least that’s what Mick Jagger says. As this is our first full day in Hong Kong, I wanted to get out with the girls and play in the hotel pool and the park nearby, while Chris checked in with the Expedia office located here to fulfill his work obligations. Unfortunately, we woke up this morning to a gray steady rain, which has persisted all day. At first, I was more than a little disappointed. What was I going to do with two bored children stuck in a hotel room all day long? As usual, the Universe knows better than I. In retrospect, I am so thankful for a quiet, rainy day. We’re all tired, down to our bones. The girls took the morning to construct a fort under the desk in their room using pillows and their Chinese umbrellas. They played together beautifully for a really long time. I had some quiet, a shower and time to make a much needed phone call. After lunch, we watched movies, and took naps. So, I guess Mick was right. You can’t always get what you want. But sometimes, you get what you need.
After breakfast, we began packing up our belongings in preparation for our morning departure. The confusion and frustration on Mia’s face was painful to see. We did our best to try to tell her what was going to happen. We even enlisted the help of our Holt representative, Catherine, who could at least explain to her in words she could understand. Despite our best efforts, little Mia had a tough morning. She hid. She took things out of the suitcases, often faster than we were putting things in. She even cried once or twice. Thankfully, she settled on clinging on to me with a level of ferocity I would not have expected from such a little person. I’m not going to kid anyone here, transitions are difficult for me, too. Given that, I think it was easier for me to empathize with how she must be feeling. To us, this is nothing, we’re leaving the Marriott hotel. To her, we’re leaving only the second place she’s ever spent the night, and going where? I’m sure she can’t even imagine. It didn’t help that we’re all tired and crabby. I spent the entire morning bouncing back and forth between my role as consoling mother and referee. We left the Guang by train to Hong Kong. While many, many parts of this adventure have been absolutely wonderful, others – well, not so much. Chris’s aunt Marj has a saying that goes something like, “You haven’t travelled the world until you know how to flush a toilet eleven different ways.”. If that saying holds true, and we certainly think it does, then after visiting 23 countries and 4 continents, I can call myself a true world traveler. Like everything else in life, when you are away from home, you have to approach foreign toilets with a healthy sense of humor. Your own tissue, and some hand sanitizer are certainly helpful, too. In China, like many other middle eastern countries, the majority of the toilets are little more than a hole in the floor, affectionately nicknamed ‘squatty potties’. So, after boarding the train this morning, Mia began pulling on my arm, while doing the famous kids’ pee-pee dance. And off we go, portable tissue pack in hand. Now, it wouldn’t be appropriate to discuss the intimate details of our excursion here, but I feel justified in claiming another level of motherhood achievement. Imagine if you will, navigating a tiny, stinky squatty potty with a small child all the while rocking and bumping with the motion of a moving train. Only my many years of yoga training could have prepared me for the strength, flexibility and balance necessary to accomplish this feat. After today, I feel like I deserve a medal, or at least a stiff drink. And Sydney says: Squatty potties are DISGUSTING! But sometimes, you get what you get, and you don’t throw a fit! This was our last full day here in Guangzhou, or as Chris has nicknamed it, The Guang (pronounced Gwanj). With Mia’s Chinese passport and US visa in hand, we will leave first thing tomorrow morning on a train to Hong Kong. We are so ready to be leaving here, and so thankful that we are able to leave on schedule! In keeping with the Holt tradition, all of the families in our adoptive group gathered in the office this afternoon for the ‘red couch’ photo. I’m not sure how long ago this tradition started, but it has been going on for quite some time. This photo shows all of the adoptive children from our group, in traditional Chinese dress: The photo meant a lot to the Gonzalez family, as their daughter Leah (far right, pink dress) is the third child they have adopted from China through Holt. The photo wasn’t as meaningful to us, but hey, who are we to break tradition? We were there in the office much longer than we thought we would be, trying to get all of the children to cooperate. Many, many pictures were taken, but as it often goes, at least one of the children were screaming in each and every take. We were very proud of Mia – she never cried, but just looked bored with the entire process. We were with you, girlie! After all the tries, we were all ready to get the heck out of there! Since we’re scheduled to leave early tomorrow, we decided to make a quick trip to the 7 Eleven (yep, just like we have at home) to stock up on snacks for the trip. I haven’t made mention of all of the *interesting* foods available here in China. Today, we saw packaged dried squid, seafood flavored chips, and yes, those are chicken feet! We decided to play it safe, and go with the pistachios instead. I have to admit, I probably should have tried the chicken feet. They must be tasty, as they have been a staple on the hotel restaurant buffet the entire time we’ve been here. All in all, the food has been great. For example, I’ve enjoyed smoked whitefish, hummus and pita bread for breakfast almost every day. And let me just say that bacon wrapped asparagus is to die for! One thing is certain about traveling, you’ve got to be flexible when it comes to food. |
Lisa LynchLisa is a world traveling mom that took the ultimate adventure Archives
December 2012
|