On the Road

Analyze This

Tonight in the dark Meimei whispered in my ear, "I love hot dogs and I love you."

Very Local Briefs

Daddy has been working late these days, and half the night after he gets home, which means I get the girls to myself a bit more. Tonight I played with Meimei, who wanted to turn somersaults on a pillow while Jiejie read an Olivia book. Then we played limbo with a tape measure, and used it to reel each other in. We ripped brown paper off a table that had been in storage but kept it for another use "so we can save the earth," Jiejie said. We took Meimei to the potty about 23 times. (She's a natural.) Then we played "new babysitter," Jiejie's idea. She was Sydney, the new babysitter, and Meimei was her charge. "What will you do with my daughter today, Sydney?" I asked her. "Oh, whatever she wants," Sydney assured me. "I always do whatever the kid wants. All day." She nodded knowingly. And what will you feed her? "Bananas and apples. They have fiber."
Oh, and protein. "Some... chicken?" she said in a questioning tone. And vegetables? "I think carrots." We're going to have to try that microgreen salad again ... Even having Jiejie's lettuce patch out back is not enough to persuade them to do more than dip something green into ranch dressing and lick the dressing off.

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What does it mean that I keep stumbling over photos of orphans on the Internet and seeing posts about older kids who need homes desperately, kids in China who will be on their own at age 14 if they have not been adopted, kids who are never even on any agency's list for adoption because they are cursed not only with having attained the advanced age of 12 but also were born blind?

It means, I guess, that I hug my kids closer and wonder about carving out that extra bedroom.

Fretwork

Jiejie has been very whiny since school let out a week ago. She wants to sit on my lap constantly and be my baby, which is fine. I love to baby her. But the baby behavior has extended to refusing to take her vitamins and allergy medicine. Jiejie has even been whining in her sleep. Well, one night, anyway. She wanted a round bandaid and we had no round bandaids in our huge assortment. Could she seriously have been whimpering about a bandaid in her sleep? It was the first thing she asked for in the morning. Should she have more perspective at age 6? I don't think I did. Magnitude was directly related to how badly I wanted something. I guess she is a lot like me. Too much like me, perhaps. But I have grown out of my willfulness. I am no match for her. But what do you do when a child her age refuses to do something? I won't physically force her. What is a disciplinary measure appropriate to the infraction? One that would be instructive and constructive?
These are the little worries that have been nagging at me this week as I wondered if Jiejie was just tired, if her allergies were making her grumpy, if a few days of missing her Omega 3s had had a behavioral effect, if it was simply a case of missing the routine of full-day Kindergarten, or if she was mourning her birth parents or having some kind of attachment crisis or appendicitis or swine flu or west nile virus or ...