More on Meimei and Love

Meimei loves to just hug your whole head, and does it often. "I love you, Mama," she said this week. Then patting the side of my head, she said, "I love your BIG ears."
Well, they are. I'm glad somebody loves them.

Sharing

The first several months of school we never got the notices for sharing day until the day after. They disappeared temporarily in some recess of Jiejie's backpack and reappeared when it was too late. Then, gradually, she started showing us the notices but saying she did not want to take part. Later, she took in a few books, but was careful not to take anything that required speech or interaction. Today was the first show-and-tell Jiejie attended willingly and prepared for enthusiastically. Today, she wore a bright, crisp summer dress in white, pink and black and took a stuffed cat wearing the identical dress in stuffed-cat size.

Kindergarten is almost over. It took along time for Jiejie to take part in snack time, a long time to actually eat her lunch at school rather than on the way home, a long time to use the classroom toilet, but she told me recently --well, she didn't tell me; I was sitting in for Uma. You know Uma, the bare-hand puppet, Oobi's sister -- Uma likes to visit us and especially to go to Manhattan, but more on Uma later. Jiejie told us these things became easy because she had a best friend to do them with her, the amazing Anya. Jiejie told Uma that once you have a partner to do scary things with, they become easy, great advice for Uma who encounters a lot of scary challenges in hand-puppet life. Jiejie and Anya became best friends the day before school started at the ice cream social and have been inseparable despite gentle teacherly suggestions that the girls broaden their social circles. Well, that didn't happen, so the school will be exposing them to other friends for us when first grade comes.

Uma will be sad.

Those Toes

Tonight, after traipsing up and down stairs in search of band-aids, new pajama tops, better books and one more milk box before tooth-brushing, Daddy came home and the kids decided not to make the trip back to bed but to indulge their favorite Friday night activity: falling asleep on our laps on the sofa. And so they did. Directly in my sightlines to the TV, where "Hannah and her Sisters" was playing, with those quick shots of some of Mia Farrow's kids, were Jiejie's toes, delicate and small, even for her age, and a bit paddle-shaped. I wondered where she had gotten those toes, just as earlier in the evening I marveled at a little yoga show she put on, complete with a full lotus, based on the pages of yoga-wear in a New-agey catalog. Such incredible flexibility and willingness to throw herself into imitating the pictures. Whose genes are these; whose grandmother turned cartwheels and arched over into a back bend; who could bear to give up this amazing creature? Did she think of Jiejie today? Calculate her age? Sketch a portrait in her head?

Meimei Gone Wild

Meimei is a little discomfited by the new babysitter who comes while Ping takes summer classes. While the new sitter is sweet as pie and has spent endless hours playing hide and seek, she has, according to Meimei, a fatal flaw. "Her head too big!" Meimei insists.
Meimei is a little sensitive about heads. She doesn't like the head of one of her favorite sitters, Ashley. Ashley has a curtain of dark curls -- a theatre curtain -- and when her long hair was let down for Meimei, she went to the computer room, sat on the floor and cried, "Ashley not my friend!" Ashley keeps her hair up now.

And Now a Word From Our Sponsor

When the economy crashed and we were fighting the battle of two mortgages, I stopped sponsoring a child in China. When we had a signed contract on our former home, it was time to start again. Amazingly, a beautiful child appeared on the Yahoo group for the orphanage where Jiejie lived for the first 14 months of her life. The sponsorship will allow the child to be taken care of by a foster family rather than orphanage workers. But what struck me about her is her stunning resemblance to Jiejie when she was an infant.
Who knows?
Here she is.

Tough Love

Jiejie may be able to read anything you put in front of her, but when it comes to emotions, she struggles. In fact, it must drive her crazy listening to the sweet declarations of love that accompany her little sister's every exhalation. It's no surprise then that I nearly fell out of my chair today when Jiejie skipped past her little sister and quickly and quietly whispered to her, "I love you."
She finished her skipping circuit and after Meimei had left the room, Jiejie came over and whispered to me, "Did you hear what I said?"
I told her I had. "Was it hard for you?" I asked, remembering all the red-crayoned notes she slipped under the door after her sister came home bearing subtle messages like "NO!!!! BABY!!!!" She admitted it had been hard.
I said, "Well, now that you've said it to your sister, will you say it to me?"
And she did.
I told her I was very proud, and I am.
She doesn't realize Mommy had a tough time with those words too.

Jiejie Rocks

I came to my home computer this morning and found iTunes on the screen. In the Search panel someone had typed "rock and roll." Jiejie strikes again!