If someone had told me a week ago that Jiejie would be standing atop an ottoman belting out a song from "The Lion King," I would have scoffed. But it's true. My shy one, who has always been able to carry a tune exceptionally well and always afraid to sing out, was so inspired by her after-school music class that she hummed a song in my ear Friday night. Then she found it on YouTube (that mixed blessing) and tried to copy the lyrics as she heard them on the music video, refusing to allow me to find them on the Internet for her. Ultimately, she asked me to help. When I showed her the lyrics, she picked up her battered hand-me-down laptop, holding it like a heavy hymnal, and began to sing with no accompaniment. She sang and sang. I introduced her. She sang again. I asked her where she wanted her audience to sit. She placed Meimei and me on a sofa and stood in at the far end of the family room. "Sing so the audience in the back row can hear you!"
She did.
And then she wanted a stage, so she climbed onto the ottoman and sang from her little heart, "Can you feel the love tonight?" "Love' came out as "wuv" almost. She sang to Meimei and me, she sang on the phone to Daddy working late. She hasn't
sung it again since that night, but I can't get that tune out of my head.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Monday, October 19, 2009
Tears for Fears
Jiejie had a grueling week this week. That all-important teaching tool, the two-pocket folder, was at the center of the drama. In first grade, the teacher hands out laminated color coded folders, one to a customer. The folders can last all year and the kid are to do their best to preserve and protect them. We ran out of juice boxes and milk boxes and sent her lunchtime drink to school in a "leakproof" water bottle, It leaked over everything. Dad tried to patch the folder with tape, and mom, at Jiejie's insistence, wrote a note to express her desire for another chance with a new folder. The powers-that-be in first grade decided the folder was still usable.
The next day, a Friday, we tried another leakproof water bottle because in our busy, slacker household no one had had time to run out for the juice boxes that are such a convenience to the kids, yet such a waste of money and packaging. It leaked. Everywhere. It destroyed the school picture form, the homework, the seams of the folder.
By the beginning of the next week, we had juice boxes. Ewe also had an inconsolable Jiejie who huddled on my lap at breakfast (OK, the lap at breakfast is not unusual; It's our special time.) in tears. She would not eat, take her vitamins or brush her teeth. She would not go out the door to the school bus. She cried barrels of mournful tears. At last the problem came to light; the folder was an impossible problem, the teacher had said no to a new one, how would Jiejie ever carry her schoolwork? Now this is a child who has a lot of anxiety about scrutiny at school. Folders and backpacks have always been a problem. Where to put them, how to unload them, what if she did something wrong. Jiejie had no qualms about carrying Silky in her backpack, Silky is the name given to several pieces of silk around the house: some pillowcases we bought in Hong Kong, the accompanying sheet, too tissuey-thin to really sleep under but great to ball up and cuddle, and most recently an old magenta sheath from my party-girl days.
Sometimes the assignments never come out of the backpack. Two weeks ago the kids were asked to bring in an example of a pattern. We strove to find something that would fit in the backpack The best we could do was a lovely pillowcase with a border crocheted by my grandmother. It never got to the teacher.
Her tears appealed to my inner anxious first grader. I hurried to shower and dress and drive her to school, late of course, and show the folder to the teacher to obtain a new one. The tears stopped. I missed my bus and was late to work. She got a new folder, color-coded blue, unlaminated.
I wonder how long it will last?
The next day, a Friday, we tried another leakproof water bottle because in our busy, slacker household no one had had time to run out for the juice boxes that are such a convenience to the kids, yet such a waste of money and packaging. It leaked. Everywhere. It destroyed the school picture form, the homework, the seams of the folder.
By the beginning of the next week, we had juice boxes. Ewe also had an inconsolable Jiejie who huddled on my lap at breakfast (OK, the lap at breakfast is not unusual; It's our special time.) in tears. She would not eat, take her vitamins or brush her teeth. She would not go out the door to the school bus. She cried barrels of mournful tears. At last the problem came to light; the folder was an impossible problem, the teacher had said no to a new one, how would Jiejie ever carry her schoolwork? Now this is a child who has a lot of anxiety about scrutiny at school. Folders and backpacks have always been a problem. Where to put them, how to unload them, what if she did something wrong. Jiejie had no qualms about carrying Silky in her backpack, Silky is the name given to several pieces of silk around the house: some pillowcases we bought in Hong Kong, the accompanying sheet, too tissuey-thin to really sleep under but great to ball up and cuddle, and most recently an old magenta sheath from my party-girl days.
Sometimes the assignments never come out of the backpack. Two weeks ago the kids were asked to bring in an example of a pattern. We strove to find something that would fit in the backpack The best we could do was a lovely pillowcase with a border crocheted by my grandmother. It never got to the teacher.
Her tears appealed to my inner anxious first grader. I hurried to shower and dress and drive her to school, late of course, and show the folder to the teacher to obtain a new one. The tears stopped. I missed my bus and was late to work. She got a new folder, color-coded blue, unlaminated.
I wonder how long it will last?
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Birds, Bees and Naughty Bits
Not long ago, apropos of nothing, Jiejie asked me how babies get into ladies' tummies.
These questions are always a good gateway to talking about adoption, but Jiejie kept steering the conversation back to the topic I was not really prepared for.
"Babies grow from a sort of seed," I told her. "The seed is planted by the daddy and when it's in the mommy it begins to grow."
A horrified look crossed her face, but was quickly replaced by the scrunchy-faced curiosity of a junior scientist.
"Does she EAT the seed?"
"Oh, no. She doesn't eat it."
"Well, how does it get in her tummy then?"
"Ummmm," I said.
"How, Mom?"
I paused, hoping that the doorbell or phone would ring or that a small kitchen fire might break out to command our attention.
"It gets there by another road."
"What road, Mom?" She was getting a little impatient.
"It goes in through her vagina," I said with a gulp. This is a word Jiejie has known since she was 2 and it was information she eagerly disseminated to everyone she knew. When she was 3, I knew she had taught the babysitter's 5-year-old the word because both girls pronounced it the same way, as if it started with the letter "p," as in, "I can almost do the splits but I can't get my pagina to touch the floor."
"Mom, how does the daddy get the seed into her vagina?" she asked, her pronunciation crisp and correct at 6 and a half.
"This is really going to sound silly, honey," I said. "The seed comes out of the daddy's penis."
"Really??" she said, wide-eyed. "Then when it comes out he pouts it in her vagina?"
"Not exactly," I said. "And this is the part that is going to sound funny. He puts his penis in her vagina and the seed comes out."
"Oohhhh," said Jiejie. "He sorta shoots it in?"
"Sort of," I said.
"That's really funny," she said, and moved on to another topic.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Jiejie in Love
"What's a crush, Mama?" Jiejie asked on Sunday night.
"It's kind of like being in love," I said.
"Then I think I have a crush on Richard," she announced.
"I see," I said. "Have you kissed him?" (Oh silly Mom. Of all the stupid things to say!)
"No," she said. "I make chicken noises at him,and then Richard says, 'Oh no, not again!'"
On Monday night she called him "my boyfriend Richard."
"He was born in California," she told us in bed.
"Me born from China," chimed in Meimei.
"Isn't it interesting," I said, that so many of our friends were born in different places."
"I made more chicken noises on the playground," said Jiejie, demonstrating her clucking and bawking. "My boyfriend, Richard, said, 'Oh no!'"
"It's kind of like being in love," I said.
"Then I think I have a crush on Richard," she announced.
"I see," I said. "Have you kissed him?" (Oh silly Mom. Of all the stupid things to say!)
"No," she said. "I make chicken noises at him,and then Richard says, 'Oh no, not again!'"
On Monday night she called him "my boyfriend Richard."
"He was born in California," she told us in bed.
"Me born from China," chimed in Meimei.
"Isn't it interesting," I said, that so many of our friends were born in different places."
"I made more chicken noises on the playground," said Jiejie, demonstrating her clucking and bawking. "My boyfriend, Richard, said, 'Oh no!'"
Meimei and "Mad Men"
OK, we know our favorite show is not for kids, but Meimei likes to stay up with mom and dad after Jiejie is asleep, so she has seen a little of Mom's favorite show.
Her comments so far:
On the opening of the falling Don Draper in silhouette: "Why man have only ear and no face?"
And on Betts: "Her not nice mommy. My mommy nice!"
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)