Around Jiejie's birthday in March, she starts to have little periods of sadness, tears, maybe anger, frustration, sometimes creeping toward the borders of rage and fear. This continues on and off until May or June, the time of year we returned from China with her in 2004.
The other night, she started talking about wanting a kitten. It was bedtime, the lights were going out, and her insistent whining about a cat might have been one of the endless ploys to delay sleep. Her father told her it was out of the question because of his allergies, and she began to cry. "We'll never get a kitten. Never." Her tears and squeals of anger drove Daddy and Meimei downstairs to a sofa.
"I want a Siamese. Two. One named Milky and one named Way." I listened to her tearful pleas, interwoven with plans for caring for kittens and teaching them tricks and buying them some of that cat milk that comes in little juice box-type containers, and how do they get that milk out of the mother cats, anyway? Before bed she had been reading a book of children's poems about cats. Perhaps that was the inspiration.
Then she began to talk about the homeless cats, the ones who needed families. And perhaps it was just cats she was thinking of, but her words reminded me of ho she used to like to reenact the time we went to the animal shelter almost three years ago to get our youngest cat, Luna, presumably a Father's Day gift for allergic Daddy, and how for months afterward she had climbed behind the baby gate at the bottom of the stairs, meowing for food and for a Mommy to take her home and pet her.
Long after her tears had dried, she kept wailing in my arms as the night disappeared and the school day loomed closer. I made all sorts of promises about going to the animal shelter to visit and pet some kittens who needed homes.
The morning dawned warm and sunny. I heard nothing more about the homeless cats.
Helen. Gina here. I just read this post about "that time of year" and realized that Sylvie does it too. Sylvie just turned six April 6 and she's been like this since the turn of the New Year. Her fretting stops when she has her birthday party. She counts down the months and days until her birthday and seems to have most of her remembrances during this time. She is very much into loving China and wanting to go back, get a sibling, and etc. She told me on Sunday that when she goes back she wants to bring toys and clothing for the children and makeup for the aunties. That's all for now. Talk soon
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