The MeMe That Is Going Around…

We are using both her given Chinese names as one of her middle names. Her name is going to be Emerson Rose [CN] [R.’s Last Name]. Emerson after Ralph Waldo because R. is an American literature scholar and likes RWE a whole bunch. And we both really like the nickname that comes out of Emerson, although we’re not sure how we’re going to spell it yet–Emme or Emmy. We threw Rose in there so that we could make a cute longer nickname out of it, actually–Emme Ro. We would have just used her CN as the lone middle name without “Rose” at all, but…

okay, we interrupt this previously scheduled programming for a wee confession. If things progress smoothly with our agencies (yes, plural now) and the CCAA, then we already know who our daughter is going to be, as she is on a waiting list, and we are sending in an LOI for her. And her given Chinese names are Fu Lu. So, her full name will be Emerson Rose Fu Lu [R.’s Last Name]. We would have gone with just Emerson Fu Lu [R.’s Last Name], but then we would have had a nickname of Emme Lu. Or Emme Fu. Both of those are too close to Emmy Lou Harris for our taste. (Not that we have anything against ELH…I’m just sayin’.) Especially because R.’s last name also ends in an “is.” So, we’re using “Rose” purely as a way to create a cute nickname for her. Emme Ro.

Phew. Good grief, that was long explanation. I’m beginning to bore myself with myself.

I find absolutely no reason to cover this ground again. If you don’t know how I feel about this subject, read this post or this one or even this one.

R. has been scouting trails this week on his mountain bike that might be tame enough to take the girl on in the future.

Okay, actually another time-out confession: we call her “the bee.” Why the bee, you ask? Because one of her referral pictures has this funky, home-processing photo background that proclaims “I AM A BEE” down the side of the photo where she is standing. We have taken to saying “I am a bee” at almost every opportunity. Like, just walking around the house, we now say, “I am a bee,” in place of “good morning, honey” or whatever.

Hence…R. has been scouting trails this week that we might be able to take the bee on in the future. In one of those wee bike seats, just about right for a bee.

I see myself reading to her. A lot. I see her finger painting. And helping me bake cookies and pancakes. And hanging ornaments on the Christmas tree. And looking at bugs. And planting flowers and tomato plants together in the spring.

We have decided we are not going to stop traveling just because we are parents. We want to take her places and show her things. I want to take her to the ocean, so she can smell the salt and hear the waves and feel the tide suck on her toes.

Years ago, I had close friends who became first-time parents (biologically). I remember watching when their son was toddler age, and we would go pick him up at school: he would come zooming out of the school doors and race, wide-eyed and wild, in a bee-line for his dad’s (or his mom’s) open arms. I vowed that some day, I would feel that feeling of a child racing, haywire and helter-skelter, for my arms, as if he or she was going to burst if they didn’t get there fast enough.

I just finished Cheri Register’s Beyond Good Intentions. Wanting a Daughter, Needing a Son is very affecting. Toddler Adoption: A Weaver’s Craft is coming up next on my reading list.

Sleep.

Any of the Nancy Drews for prose. Hailstones and Halibut Bones for poetry. See here for more of my faves.

I experienced a real learning curve in my attitude towards the Lifebook. I was so ready to have these things be just another excuse for a redthreadladybugchinadoll moment, that I was writing the whole idea off as a cutesy-pie crafty project. But now I have been educated a bit. I realize that the Lifebook will be very important to my daughter as she negotiates her past, her adoptive history, her Chinese heritage, her time before she came to us. It is an attempt fill in some of the missing pieces of her early life, and I hope that I can do it justice. In that sense, I am terrified of screwing it up. I ordered some books earlier this week to help me figure out how to do this: Lifebooks: Creating a Treasure for the Adopted Child and Adoption Lifebook: A Bridge to Your Child’s Beginnings.

Bird watching.

Yes, if it helps her to bond with/attach to us or feel secure early on. Whatever works for her individual needs.

I am a huge fan of the name Calum for a girl. Callie as the nickname. R. isn’t.

Catherine Zeta Jones.

Absolutely, light off. Must be pitch black.

Absolutely, experiment. I don’t mind eyeballs even. I’ll try just about anything. Raw is good too.

The Naked Ovary was my first. *Blush.* Any of my ALT peeps’ blogs, I really love to read. They are such wonderful women (and a couple men, too).