The Official List of Traditions

I mentioned my nostaglia for the holidays before. As the time for my family to arrive here at the ranch gets closer–and as I get more and more frantic trying to get ready–I have been trying to remember why I liked Christmas so much. Here is what I’ve come up with:

The Family Traditions:

On Christmas Eve, you got to open one gift before going to bed. The debate about which one to choose raged for days ahead of time. My sister and I would review and revise our decisions based on more than a grade-school kiddo’s fair share of overthinking. Like, ‘Mom says good things come in small packages…is that really true?’ Inevitably, we would feel we chose the wrong one…not because the gift wasn’t any good, but because we knew what was inside a box the minute it was opened and that meant the process of choosing was over for another year.

Every Christmas Eve, my sister and I would sleep in the same bed, crammed into a twin, so that neither of us would get up and sneak downstairs before the other. The funny part is that I don’t think either of us would have ever really done that because it would have been breaking the TRADITION. Get it?

On Christmas morning, the whole family would line up at the top of the stairs in birth order. Dad first, then Mom, then me, then my sister–last. You can see why I liked this one. I actually think it was originally devised as a way for my Dad to get down there first to turn on the audio tape. We have audio tapes of all my Christmasses growing up (but not movies–my parents couldn’t afford a movie camera and this was way before video).

Santa’s gifts were never wrapped. They were gathered in two distinct batches in the room, so that my sister and I didn’t get confused. We always did Santa first; then we turned to unwrapping the family gifts under the tree; then, just when you were getting that ‘oh no, maybe it’s over’ feeling, you would remember you still had a stocking to unpack. We didn’t eat until after all the gift-exchange was over…for which I am eternally thankful to my mother. I have heard horror stories about families who had to get up and march immediately past the presents to the dining room for breakfast. Yikes.

I also know that the unwrapped-vs-wrapped gifts from Santa is open to some debate. In fact, we’re going to have it at my house on Sunday night, after my sister’s kids go to bed, because my BIL came from a “wrapped” family…and we didn’t. My ex-husband’s family used to wrap, too. His mother had five kids, and all the gifts from Santa came wrapped in white tissue paper (that’s how they “knew”). Each of the five kids had a different color ribbon that designated which of the wrapped gifts was theirs (because we all know that Santa doesn’t have decent handwriting). So my ex, who was the oldest, had red ribbon; then green, then gold, then blue, then white. Each kid knew their color and could find their gifts.

I preferred to see Sean Cassidy’s big ‘ole teeth smiling out at me from his poster when I came into the living room in 1977. I *knew* that was mine too.

After we got to be adults, my mother would serve a huge pitcher of Bloody Marys on Christmas morning while we opened gifts. She made it well–lots of horseradish–and we would get pretty toasty. One year in my early-mid 20s, someone gave me one of those little jars of Herbes de Provence as a gift. The lid was taped shut, and I tried a bit too vigorously to pry it open (ahem), and dried herbs shot all over the living room. We had thyme and lavender in our hair, all over the floor, the couch, the coffee table…but it sure did smell good that year.

The day after Christmas, we would pile into the car and drive north to Pennsylvania, to my grandparents’ house, and do Christmas again, with my cousins. And with guaranteed snow. The 26th has never been the same since.

R.’s family had their own traditions, and I’ll mention one here: his aunt and uncle lived very close by his own family and hosted Christmas every year…his aunt had a creche set up on a set of bookshelves…and periodically throughout the month of December and into January, the three kings would be found to have moved closer to the manger. On January 6th, they would have arrived, crib-side. They were wily, active, wise men apparently. The kids, of course, were fascinated by this intrepid movement.

Hope everyone who is celebrating this weekend has a wonderful holiday. I am secretly breaking the rule about living in the moment and thinking about next year, when I will have Emerson home to share some of this with us.

What the Desert Looks Like…

when it’s trying hard to snow…

I counted two flakes. It is in the high 20s-low 30s. But we have a giant suck-hole that sits over the ranch, and it scatters the water to the winds. So, still no snow for us this year…

Abecederian* Meme…

A is for age:

40, last September.

B is for Beer:

Amber. I don’t drink beer too much because the bubbles bug me.

C is for Career:

English Professor (Renaissance Lit) and Poet.

D is for my Dog’s Name:

Spot, Gus, and Fiona.

E is for Essential Item I Use Everyday:

Computer.

F is for Favorite T.V. Show:

CBS Sunday Morning.

G is for Favorite Game:

Chess.

H is for Hometown:

Columbia, Maryland.

I is for Instruments I Play:

Flute, Piccolo. I actually had a music scholarship to college. Long time ago.

J is for Favorite Juice:

Tomato. With lemon slice.

K is for Whose Butt I’d Like To Kick:

Yeah–the Bushy.

L is for the Last Place I Ate:

Home. Roast chicken last night.

M is for Marriage:

Married 5 1/2 years. A Second Time.

N is for my Name:

SBird (which actually does have something to do with my real name).

O is for Overnight Hospital Stays:

Never.

P is for People I was With Today:

Just the hubby, before he left for California.

Q is for Quote:

“The only way out is through.”

R is for Biggest Regret:

Where to start? Actually, “regret” is too strong a term. I am critical of some of my choices, but I do think I’m who I am because of where I’ve been. And it’s hard to imagine that much differently at this point.

S is for Sport:

Swimming. Hiking.

T is for Time I Woke Up Today:

Six.

U is for Current Underwear:

Victoria’s Secret. Cotton. Colors. Not bikinis. Never bikinis.

V is for Vegetable You Love:

Asparagus.
Butter Lettuce.

W is for Worst Habit:

Procrastination.

X is for X-rays I Have Had:

Hmmmmm…lots of sonograms, a CATScan and a MRI or two, a mammogram…but otherwise, only dental x-rays.

Y is for Yummy Food You Ate Today:

Coffee Ice Cream.

Z is for Zodiac:

Virgo. (Pisces rising, I think.)

Year of the Horse.

*abecederian…a word puzzle or cipher that uses the alphabet to guide the text. Often thought (long ago) to have supernatural powers…as in the case of a few of the biblical psalms. See “C for Career” to know why I know this geeky, less-than-useful tidbit.

…the goose is getting fat…oh, yeah, and I got my PA!!!

I do admit to loving the holidays. I am a smushy ham about it. I think it has to do with nostaglia, actually–although my sister isn’t particularly holiday-happy, and we grew up in the same household with the same potential for nostaglia…so who knows.

Here’s a couple views of the tree that we started last weekend and finished this morning–the star’s still crooked, but starshine gone askew seems apt somehow:

Here’s the ornament we bought for Emme Lu this year–it’s a bee!

Here’s my very first ornament (the little pink cherub), from Christmas 1966:

Some more random ornaments:

And, in other news, we got our PA! It’s 63 days today since we sent our LOI, although I suspect it was a little bit faster than that, but we only called our agency and asked about it today. Our agency contact also said she doesn’t think we’ll get a new LID, since our dossier was already through translation when we pulled it and switched to SN/Agency #2, which is good news. So, TAs are averaging about 100 days right now from LOI. We’re on Day 63…so it potentially could be the end of January when we hear the TA news, and we could probably travel before Chinese NY in February that way.

Here’s the stats:
DTC 7-14-06
LID 8-3-06
LOI 10-11-06
PA 12-13-06
TA?

Oh, and here’s the reason we call Emme Lu “The Bee” (without the password protection):

Some weird, weird photoshop going on in China, there! And another:

Sun Fu Lu (soon to be Emerson FuLu)
b. 8-1-05
Yancheng City SWI, Jiangsu Province
She is apparently extroverted, likes to go outside, and laughs out loud a lot! And in the bee photo, she is learning to walk, and that was taken in August when she was 12 months. She is 16 months now…so who knows how big she is or whether she grew some hair!

I am putting together a care package to send over by the end of the week: a blanket that I’ve been sleeping with so it smells like mama; a stuffed rabbit that has mama’s and baba’s voices speaking (”wa ai ni” etc.) when you squeeze its arm; a little fleece jacket; some plastic toy links; a photo album with labeled pictures of the whole family; and a disposable camera. I am having a letter translated right now, and I still need to buy some sweets for the nannies to stick inside.

2007 is looking good.

Between A Rock and A Hard Place…

So, the new restrictions that fell out of the big CCAA meeting yesterday have been posted on the RQ, and–if nothing else did–they alone could confirm for us that we did the right thing by switching to SN…

R. is turning 52 in April, which means that had we stayed NSN, we already would have been experiencing a grandfathered in situation with the age requirement for NSN now going to 50 for each parent. BUT, crucially, had we stayed NSN, it would have meant no kiddo #2–NSN or SN–for us, at least from China. R. would have been 55 by the time we paperchased for #2, which means we wouldn’t have been able to adopt SN for #2 either.

At least now, we have the chance to get Emme Lu home in the next few months and start searching the WC lists soon after for #2. The CCAA has no restriction about waiting a year between kids for SN adoptions (although some agencies sometimes get this little factoid wrong), so many SN aparents actually send in LOIs for #2 while they’re still waiting for TA or are just home with #1. I want to wait until we’re through with Emme Lu’s surgery/ies this summer and have worked on the first crucial six-months of attachment with her, but we won’t be waiting too long after that before we start looking again. We have three years to complete our family, assuming we stick with China–and there aren’t many other countries who will look at a 50+ year old.

The no-more-singles rule really sucks ass. I’m just sick about it for the single aparents.

Talking About Race…

So I spent a grand amount of o’bloggo space here recently presenting the ideas of Jane Brown, IA and diversity specialist, for your consideration because I wanted to share and because I wanted to get some stuff out on the table before I offered a couple of my own thoughts and ruminations…

and I want to spend a little time commenting on two of Brown’s more salient (and more controversial) points: (1) relocating to a more diverse environment to promote your daughter’s healthy racial identity; and (2) pursuing adult friendships and associations with people of color so that your daughter can observe her family in a diverse context within her own home–again to promote the formation of a healthy racial identity.

So, I live in Arizona. In a town of 300. On a ranch. Can you say White any louder than that? I think not. We have, from time to time, had some Latinos who lived in my little ranching community, but none at the moment. The bigger town (pop. 35,000) that I live about 1/2 hour away from is not much better. It is predominantly white, predominantly conservative, predominantly retired. There are persons of color (in the line at the bank yesterday, there was one black person, five white people, and one Hispanic, and the teller was black) in town, but they are unfortunately not a large presence. I attend a very progressive, liberal church (for my town), and there is only one person of color (a Latina) who is also a member there–Emme Lu will make two. When I was teaching full time at the community college, I was close friends with the only Asian on staff. She and I are still friends, but not as close as we used to be. We used to hang out at each other’s houses from time to time and on every break at work, but it’s become hard to keep those relationships up when I quit the job and moved 25 miles away (and she would probably be slightly suspicious if I suddenly tried to rekindle the friendship, given that she knows I’m adopting from China. Ahem.)

Many folks would consider the ranch to be an ideal place to raise a child. We have a lot of open space. It is full of learning opportunities, opportunities for play, opportunities to grow up in the natural world. There are boulders to climb, trails to hike, horses to learn to ride (well, not really, not yet; so far, that’s just my little fantasy), dogs to run free with, caves to explore, super secret hiding places down little paths. It reminds me a bit of my grandfather’s farm in the mountains of eastern Pennsylvania, which I absolutely loved to visit as a kid. I would make secret hiding places under the hemlock branches and scramble around in the orchard and the daylily beds for hours. It was a little like Nancy Drew on Walden Pond. I loved it, and I know that a child would love that same sense of hidden–and revealed–wonder about this place we live now.

And the larger town nearby is the Quintessential Small Town Experience in many respects. It is known as “America’s Home Town” and “Arizona’s Christmas City” (yeah, I know, gag me), and is a so-called “Mainstreet Community,” according to the National Association for Historic Preservation. It’s pretty. The marble courthouse that sits in the middle of the town square was the model for the courthouse with the famous clock in the “Back To the Future” movies. It’s Quintessential Quaint. Young families MOVE HERE, for god’s sake, to soak up all that small-town gracious living. Ahem.

But the argument to provide your child with a racially diverse community of peers and adults is compelling to me. It seems like a no-brainer way of showing her that her dad and I are just one of many possible races, as she is one of many possible races. It’s like a diffusion of emotion or energy. Hopefully, Emme Lu won’t have to throw all her energy or emotion into Being White Just Like Her Parents if she grows up seeing that being White is just one of many ways of being. Being Asian is one of many ways of being. Being Black is one of many ways of being. Being Hispanic is one of many ways of being. It’s inevitable, of course, that she will still experience a more murky racial identification than say, I did, because her primary role models–her parents–won’t be the same race as she is. But I think the key here is numbers, as Brown implies. Given enough diversity, and given the verbal cues and the space to express her thoughts about race, she hopefully will be able to come to terms with her multiracial family as a microcosm of the larger multiracial community.

And so we need to move. To a multiracial community. So that her multiracial family feels like an obvious extension of the kinds of community she sees and experiences around her. Otherwise, I worry her family will always seem more like an exception, rather than a rule. And it IS an exception, of course. Most families aren’t made through adoption, let alone through transracial adoption. And I’ll be comfortable talking to her about how damn exceptional, how special, her family really is. But I also know that all the words and reassurances in the world from her parents aren’t going to resolve the issues she’ll experience on a day-to-day basis, negotiating life as the lone Asian in her class. Or at the birthday party. Or worse yet–at the family barbecue that her parents host for their friends, not one of whom is a person of color (unless my half-Japanese American friend comes, of course). Because that’s the current reality.

So, we’re eyeing San Diego in the next few years. R.’s new job is taking him in that direction anyway, so it seems a logical solution. Now…making friends with many people of color (which is one of Jane Brown’s nonnegotiable pieces of advice) is more tricky. I have had good friends in the past that represented many different races, many different cultures. My best friend for the past 20 years is Indian (as in, subcontinent), but she lives in…duh…India. R. is part-Native American, but he will be the first person to tell you that he doesn’t count because he “passes” as white every day of his life. It’s not something he has to negotiate externally, so he doesn’t think it’s fair to claim it. (That he negotiates it internally is another story.) Living in this part of Arizona has not been conducive to having a racially diverse group of friends, that’s certainly true.

And most important: I don’t want ANYONE to think that I’m befriending them just because I have an Asian American daughter and need to surround myself and my family with people of color for my daughter’s benefit. I mean, WTF? No one has to take me on as a charity case or a good works project. I want friends. I don’t want agendas. I HATE the idea that I would be perceived as trying to rack up the multiracial friends so that I can claim to be providing my daughter The Rainbow Experience. Fucking Yuck.

I suspect this is why Brown is considered so controversial by the IA/FCC establishment. She challenges you to think in ways that immediately send you out of your comfort zone. Because we have a problem with racial integration in this country. We just do. And it’s hard to come face to face with that reality and figure out what to do about it. Most of the time, we don’t do anything about it. MOST of us (not all) associate with people who look like us, think like us, eat like us, and so forth. Not by choice, necessarily, but just because that’s the way the world falls out around us, and we do little to challenge ourselves out of those ruts. And now, as adopting parents, we’re at a crossroads.

Let’s Talk About Race…Cont. (3)

First, welcome to the new site!

Second, I have been posting a series of excerpts from the work of transracial/transnational adoption expert, Jane Brown. Here is what she has to say about “the pause that refreshes”:

“It is important that [our children] get ‘the pause that refreshes,’ which means, to me, that they get the opportunity to be with others like themselves. They need to get more than just the chance to socialize and be together, though, for children do not connect the dots like we think that they do. Even when we, as parents, tell them and remind them that we bring them together with others like themselves, if they do not get under the surface of just looking at one another and playing together, to talking about what the common demoninators are and how that gives them collective power, it’s not all that useful. In other words, getting together with adopted kids to play is terrific, but not as useful as talking about why they’re there with one another…

One of the things I think we have wrongly assumed is that our children grieve over the loss of their birth culture. First, I think that the ethnic group and cultural identity they need is Chinese AMERICAN and not Chinese. Often, we, as adoptive parents, think that we should provide them with the culture of their homeland. If we think about it, it’s very unlikely that they are going to spend more than a few weeks of their life–if that–in China. If they do, they will be more like second or third generation Chinese Americans because it is not possible or even necessarily desirable or important for them to try to be like Chinese. Instead, they are going to be oriented towards “their people” here, in the USA, not people in China. They are Americans of Chinese heritage, not Chinese who live in America now. And there is a big difference…

I do not believe we should be aiming to impart Chinese culture so much as various aspects of Chinese American culture–which is not, in any way, a uniform culture for all Chinese Americans. It is a composite!

The grief I think we have heard adult adoptees who have been transplanted is due to not having had any choice in where they landed. That is typically when people complain and protest–not just adopted people but ANY displaced person. Our children did not ask to be separated from their first families. They did not ask to be adopted. They did not ask to be placed into families in which they are being raised by parents who don’t look like them when that is the case. They did not ask to be transplanted to another country. The adult adoptees tend to protest this and be anti-international adoption when their perspective is assumed to be that of their adoptive parents. When we hear them speak about loss and a sense of disconnection, and then label them as angry and dysfunctional and don’t, instead, listen with the intent of helping them hold those feelings and have permission to express them AT THE SAME TIME that they express their thoughts and feelings about what they have gained. When we dismiss their point of view because it doesn’t match our expectations, or makes us feel threatened because they are not grateful for all that adoption brought into their lives. When we expect them to continue to feel “special” without hearing and acknowledging that they feel “different” in ways that are not enviable. THAT is when I think we hear adult adoptees saying that it would have been better for them to have never left the land of their birth. We cannot make up for that through giving them a culture that isn’t ours to share, by giving them a culture that is like museum culture–it doesn’t even exist in China let alone in the USA–and that is the culture of another nation rather than of the one they live in.

Our kids, I believe, are better served by our helping them to connect and find a place within the Chinese AMERICAN culture than through trying to replicate what we imagine to be the Chinese culture that exists in present-day China and really doesn’t.

[Too often, we are busy] hosting gatherings that are organized and facilitated by White parents who have invited a few, select Chinese American representatives to join the party. Our kids need and benefit from FCC gatherings, but they do not get Chinese culture or Chinese American culture from those–even if we are engaged in doing things that celebrate or appreciate Chinese culture or holidays through these gatherings. The things that I think are meaningful is to get to see firsthand what it is like to be someone older (and cool!) of Chinese American heritage (like through a mentorship program or a friendship program with university or high school students or senior citizens). To see what they do, what they are interested in, what they are aiming to do with their lives. That they have boyfriends/girlfriends, participate in sports and interest groups, that they do not fit the stereotypical images that our kids otherwise tend to take in, so that they are put-off by what they see when they look in the mirror. To have the opportunity to say to themselves: “I see these Chinese American teens/young adults/adults, and I really LIKE them! They are nice, they lead fascinating lives, they are a lot like every other teen/adult I see, I can see in them the adult I will someday be–and I LIKE that! It is equally wonderful to growing up as a White kid who will turn into a White adult. I don’t have to wish to be White to know that I can and will have a great life!”

I’d like to have the opportunity to comment and talk about Brown’s ideas more fully, especially how making wiser choices about empowering your child’s racial identity will affect your own life choices as an adoptive parent…where you choose to live, with whom you choose to socialize, etc. These are BIG, complicated questions, and I’d love to hear more of your comments as well. I’ll post some of my responses to Brown’s challenges next time.