A Line a Day

Anyone can write one line a day. Right?
Meimei is finally understanding the idea that she does not belong only to one parent at a time and that she can love lots of people and that lots of people love her. She lists them any time she has a chance. But she still thinks she is the only person who gets to like the color blue. And the only person who likes dogs. Or perhaps the only person who likes blue AND dogs. But for a child just over 2.5 years old, she has an amazing grasp of her feelings, and last night she started naming herself among the people who love her. It was a lovely discovery for her, and a big step considering how many people manage to love themselves little if at all.

Happy Adoption Day!

Today we celebrated the 5th anniversary of Jiejie's adoption. We watched the video of her being placed in our arms, spurning the Good Night Moon bunny I kept inanely waggling at her, checking us out with her inky phoenix eyes. Meimei fell asleep on my shoulder while we were watching endless footage of bus rides in China and listening to the inexhaustible guide talk about the country's minority groups, which in all likelihood figure in the past of at least one if not both of our girls. Perhaps some day DNA tests will be refined enough to place a child in an ethnic minority and we can help Jiejie discover her history.
Jiejie decided we would save the Adoption Day cake she decorated for tomorrow. Meimei didn't mind. She was too busy trying to build the world's tallest sandwich out of wooden slices of ham, cheese, tomato, lettuce and onion that stack up and stick with velcro. Jiejie is having the usual night terrors that plague her this time of year, reflecting the trauma of leaving China and her familiar surroundings to come to her new home. She had a spell of night terrors around her 6th birthday too, as she always does. They don't last as long now, or happen nearly as often. I can tell she is growing up. But I can't tell if she is experiencing her grief or working through her sadness at the losses in her life.

Festival of the Autumn Moon

JieJie and MeiMei had a great day, playing with visitors and family, riding the plasma car and scooter around the new, empty house, and eating mac and cheese well past bedtime after spurning the wonderful Chinese dishes Ping cooked for the holiday.

Last year, when the September moon was full, and MeiMei had been with us about a week and was just a year old, we celebrated moon festival in Guangzhou, carrying lanterns from 7-11 illuminated by birthday candles down to the Pear River, to watch the boats full of lanterns pass by.

This year, we did not go outside to gaze at the moon. We scrunched down by the bedroom window to see it. JieJie said we should each make a wish. An adoption wish, she said. Hmmm. OK.

Her wish was a secret. Mine was not. I told the girls that on Moon festival day, when families come together, that their father and I were thankful for the tummy ladies who had given birth to our daughters, and that I hoped as they looked at the moon they would know that we were taking good care of their babies. JieJie didn't say anything, but I'm sure what went in will percolate up to the surface in a few days. MeiMei just wanted to have her toes tickled. "Booove!" she said, to get me to move over. "Booove!"

Later, when the girls were asleep in the bright moonlight, I said to their father, "On nights like this, I really wish we had another.''

He said, "You read my mind."

To be continued.

MeiMei Turns 2

And what a vision she is in her taffy-green party dress, celebrating.

Headlines

JieJie Publishes Newspaper: The Horrible Cat News in which a burglar steals Mama Cat's book while she is putting the kittens to sleep.

MeiMei Hones Gymnastics Skills. Well, OK, One Trick

JieJie Gives Ping a Grammar Test; Ping Scores 100

JieJie and MeiMei Pee in Potties Across the Midwest;
Undie-Clad JieJie's First Public Toilet Visit, at Cleveland Airport, Ends Tense Flight for Mom

Mom Longs for Day She Can Write a Paragraph Without the Word "Potty"

MeiMei Gets First Haircut

The Girls, Visiting Friends

Is JieJie really aiming the ray gun at her little sister's head? Has sibling rivalry taken on a cosmic dimension? Stay tuned for the latest developments.

The Naked House

Toilet training in our house has become something like a dissertation. We work on it for hours every day, and every day we make a teensy bit of progress. It's also as expensive as an advanced degree. To help JieJie over the rough patches we have invested in a staggering array of potty accessories, including the travel "potette," the Kandoo deluxe toilet training kit complete with frog toilet flusher) and the tissue paper cutouts called Toilet Targets.

Then there is sibling rivalry, the great unharnessed natural resource that keeps JieJie on track for kindergarten. Every time JieJie wants to pee in a pull-up, I cruelly trot out MeiMei and lead her to the potty, which is a sure-fire way to send her older sister racing to beat her to it.

MeiMei has been toilet trained somewhat miraculously by Ping, our au pair from China who deserves her own headline. At 22 months, she is a potty chair pro, although she is frightened of the grownup potty, even when it has the kandoo frog throne on it.

JieJie does not think undies are comfortable, no matter how they appeal to her fashion sense. I know some day she will fall victim to elegant lingerie, but at this point panties don't feel right, so she pads them with a panty liner. She found these in the cabinet and when she asked about them, I told her ladies wear them sometimes in their panties. She immediately latched on tot his idea. After all, they make her undies feel more like diapers. ) Which brings us to Pods, another brilliant marketing scheme and major expenditure. A pod is essentially a very thick (think futon) sanitary napkin created for the purpose of -- you guessed it -- making undies feel like diapers.

Mostly, though, JieJie prefers to wear a diaper or nothing at all, and so the default uniform has been a top with no bottoms. The girls spend a lot of time with no pants on, and all of us have gotten used to bare bottoms.

All of us except the repairman who came to fix the icemaker. He managed to politely inquire as to the girls' ages without comment on their state of undress.