Bettie Bookish

How Deep Is Your Love?

Several small things and one big thing. First, the big thing.

Love Without Boundaries is competing in the Facebook cause challenge. For those unfamiliar with the organization, you can read more here. This group is staffed completely by volunteers and works 24-hours a day 7-days a week to improve the lives of children in Chinese orphanages by providing medical care, formula and other nutrition, foster care training and education to children who may never be adopted. I cannot say enough about the amazing work this group does.

Right now, they are running neck-and-neck with Tibetan Freedom Movement and Fight Poverty. Clearly, those are both worthy organizations.

I am going to be joining and donating to LWB, and I invite you to do the same. The organization that receives the most new donations of at least $10 will receive an award of $50,000. Love Without Boundaries plans to spend the money on 10 children who need heart surgery.

Seriously - for $10 you can save 10 kids' lives. What are you waiting for?

http://apps.facebook.com/causes/view_cause/51591

Little Things

When we were in Boston, I went to Lila's salon sorceress for a haircut, and it is fabulous. Photos? No, you'll have to trust me on this one.

As we were leaving, the haircut assistant gave me a list of the products that were used in my hair, including the shampoo, conditioner and leave-in conditioner, something shinifying, something curlifying, something holdifying.

My HSH looked at the list and said: Is this covered by insurance?

Teachers' Pet

I finally got my grades for my first semester back in school in 15 years, and I got two solid B+es. And while I ordinarily would be flagellating myself for not achieving straight A's, in this instance - when the courses in question were a science class and a social science course on the Middle East - I'll take it.

This semester proves to be as challenging, although a little closer to my comfort zone. One class is about the health care system in America, and the equity or inequity thereof. I am reading a heart-wrenching book called "The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down." I want to blame someone.

I'm also taking a fiction writing seminar with a professor whom I have not yet met.

Partay

We attended a party last weekend where the primary activity was playing This Game. It was lots of fun, although I didn't get up and perform. I may have to get a copy for home so I can practice enough to go out in the world and represent.

Boy, that guy likes velvet

Thanksgiving 2006 will forever go down in the Bookish family lore as the year J-- S----- tried to kill me.

It started cordially enough when I mentioned that, ever since undergoing chemotherapy, my alcohol tolerance is much higher, and my hangover rate is much lower.

J-- took this as some kind of challenge, and asked, "What are you saying? Are you issuing a challenge?"

I hadn't been. But suddenly it seemed like the thing to do.

He spent the next two and a half hours refilling our glasses. Sometime after dessert, I managed to find my way to the sofa, where I fell asleep (or something like that). I woke up and found Lila and her mom watching an interview with Mel Gibson about Mayans.

I hoped I was hallucinating, but an ad spotted on TV today tells me I wasn't.

And J-- thinks he won. That's OK - I'll give it to him.

Dear J--, you can officially outdrink a 120-pound cancer survivor.

PACKING MORE DAY IN YOUR DAY

Today was my brother Thor's 32nd birthday, so the whole family came over to our house, and we ate leftovers and soup and sandwiches. (J-- quietly recovered on the sofa most of the afternoon. Me? I've been fine all day.)

We had cake and presents, and then all the women ran giggling upstairs so we could put together our baby bed and make it up with the pretty, pink, ovulation-inducing crib set that Sunshine gave us.

No sooner was the bed together than we all had to pack up and head into the village for the big annual Christmas "parade."

Bee had two invitations to ride in the Santa entourage, so we bundled up and stretched our waving hands.

Santa and Mrs. Ms. Claus arrived, and took their seats on a sleigh that was sitting on a platform-type wagon being pulled by two Belgian draft horses. The sleigh sat in the center of the platform, and was surrounded by hay bales, upon which all the children were going to sit.

Bee didn't want to ride on the wagon, so she opted to ride on the fire engine.

She sat in my lap, and sighed. "I wish my sister was here."

Abot halfway down Main Street (which is all of 6 blocks long), she turned toward me and asked, "Can we do this again sometime?"

The village's mayor, who also was riding on the truck, told her that, yes, she can come back next year - WITH her sister.

SPEAKING OF WHICH

The travel agency called today to let us know that we are leaving one week from tomorrow.

Everyone we tell squeals in excitement. Our stomachs hurt. Oh - we are so unprepared.

We do have an assembled baby bed now, though. So our little one will have a place to sleep without disturbing my dresser drawer full of novelty socks.

Tomorrow we travel to the Big City to load up on supplies such as saline nose spray, baby prunes and glycerine suppositories. We might get some stuff for the trip, too.

And we will definitely partake of some restaurants.

Yipes. And yipes.

My agency contact has requested an appointment date at the U.S. consulate for Dec. 14. It takes about two weeks to do the paperwork in order to be ready for the consulate apppointment.

I'm no Stephen Hawking, but my calculations tell me that puts us needing to be in China in about, oh, a week and a freaking half!

What's worse - we have toi be in NYC for two days before the target departure date, so we have to be ready to go to China in one week. ONE WEEK.

Tomorrow, our social worker will come so she can finish our update. I've got about a month's worth of work to accomplish at my job before I go. I have almost no clothes for my new daughter. (I do have a boatload of barely-worn hand-me-downs up in one of the attics. Somewhere. I hope.)

I'm so, so, so unready.

On the other hand, if they told me to get on the plane tomorrow, I would grab my toothbrush, slip on my shoes, pack as many hair accessories for Bee as I can find and head out the door.

Bee needs to look good.

121 days later

We got the word today: The Chinese government has approved our travel for the purpose of adopting. Now we wait for the date of our consulate appointment, and our travel dates will be slated.

The sound you hear - the shrill, maniacal, hysterical sound - is my head exploding under the crushing conundrum of how we could be so unprepared for something for which we have waited so long.

The agency doesn't like to have families travel over Christmas, so we hope to be there and back before then.

See how I'm not cursing? That's the mark of a seriously mature person - the kind of person who is allowed to adopt internationally.

In the next couple days, I'll be setting up our travel blog. Because I love you, that's why. And because I want to post to something my whole family can read.

The consumer-parenthood continuum

Do you know what I just did? Just moments ago - just before clicking over here to tell all of you about it?

I just finished ordering some winter essentials for my daughters.

Buttercup has serious need of some cold weather pajamas, as well as some dresses that have, at the very least, long sleeves. (Pants are evil garments of torture that, judging by the reaction they usually get, burn her skin like battery acid. Do they make snowsuits with skirts?)

As I was perusing the sale options on a couple of online catalogs and wondering if it would really be so bad to get Bee a set of blue camo PJs two sizes too big, I saw a snowsuit on deep discount, but it only came in infant sizes.

Hey - wait just a minute! I know an infant who will need a snowsuit this winter!

I bought it.

And I bought more things. Fleece pajamas in two different sizes. Two-packs of tights in two different sizes. A big girl dress for Buttercup, and a little girl dress - same design, different pattern - for her little sister.

Now, I know that if thousands of people were to read this blog, I would be running the risk of serious criticism for talking about shopping for my future child. Just ask this mom.

Therefore, I won't discuss any specifics. I won't tell you about the snuggly adorability of the fleecey PJs. I won't tell you about the matching footie pajamas. I will not even mention that the tights? They are striped.

But I will tell you that while this is not the first time I've bought clothes for the baby girl we've been thinking about, working toward and waiting for since December 2004, it is only the second time.

Honestly, I can't explain it.

When we were waiting for Bee, my Hot Shot Husband and I would linger in the baby section of every store we entered. Tears would spring to my eyes at the sight of plaid holiday dresses. A 3-pack of terrycloth bibs would cause my voice to crack when I tried to speak. And those teensy patent-leather shoes ... no, I'm OK. I just have something in my eye. It must be allergies. Yeah. Allergies. They've been acting up all week.

But the clothing and other shopping-related excitement is only one small facet of all the things that are different this time around.

When we started this process, we thought the wait would be about half as long as last time. It has been twice as long. Last time I fretted and sweat and agonized over every bit of paperwork and watched the mailbox like the Unabomber's middle school bully. This time, I've been more confident, less hurried, more relaxed.

At the same time, things have been harder. The move has complicated some of the bureaucracy. But there have been all these little unforeseen hassles along the way. Several letters had to be redone - one of them three times. I made the four-hour drive to Tallahassee three or four times because I couldn't get all my documents certified in one, easy trip, such as the trip we made during our first adoption.

Last time, we travelled to China with a group of other families; this time it will be just us.

Last time, my father-in-law died just before we submitted our dossier. Last time, my mom died just a few hours before we got our referral. Last time, I threw up for a week thinking about all the ways my life had suddenly changed, and ended up on an IV for five hours.

So, yeah. Things are different this time.

And I think that my negligence in preparation lack of shopping is a result of

a.) the incredibly hectic life I have led for the past year what with the cross-country move, the real estate drama, the attempts at self-employment and - oh yeah - already having two children who demand much attention and

b.) the general feeling of holding my breath for so long that not thinking about (what?) adoption has become a reflex.

And then there is the possibility that, deep in the most underdeveloped portions of my bird brain, there is this glimmer of superstition that if I were to get all giddy and excited and weepy over baby shoes - just like I did last time - some seriously fucking terrible things will happen. Just like they did last time.

I read with great glee a lot of women (and a couple men) who are waiting, and I get caught up along with everyone else in the jumping-up-and-downiness with which they write. But every once in a while, I pause momentarily for a psychic system diagnostic. Am I running too low on excitement for my own re-motherhood? Have I been putting it too far out of my daily thoughts? Why aren't I carrying around 24 revisions of a packing list?

I don't know the answer.

But I do know that my girl will have a snowsuit waiting for her. And some tights. Tights with stripes.

Where babies come from

The long-awaited Baby Ellah has arrived and she is definitely so cutiepie. At least, I think she is so cutiepie. It was hard to get a good look at her through her interminable entourage* of big brothers.

*Spammers: Feel free to use the phrase "interminable entourage" as your next cryptic subject line.

Her 3-year-old brother excitedly greeted us as the hospital elevator and exclaimed: Guess what! My baby sister came out!

She also has 7-year-old twin brothers. One of them said "I feel like this is a dream!" He also proclaimed that his little sister was "Better than a unicorn."

His twin brother confirmed the assertion, tweaking it slightly for his own sensibilities. "She's better than a real komodo dragon."

In the past few weeks, as we've all been talking about the imminent arrival of Baby Ellah, Buttercup wanted to know exactly how Ellah would exit her mommy Sunshine's stomach. I'm not shy about these things. I explained that Ellah was not really in Sunshine's stomach, where the food goes. She was in Sunshine's uterus. And when the time was right, Ellah would come out through the vagina, which is how these things normally happen.

B didn't skip a beat about all of this. She's a real nuts-and-bolts kind of girl who wants to know how things work - no how they really work. I mean, having a baby inside your body is so weird to begin with that it just figures the whole affair would end with the baby coming out of your befront.

At any rate, we've been talking a lot about babies and reproduction and going to China to adopt B's own baby sister.

The other night over dinner, Buttercup casually mentioned that she used to be a little baby who was in my tummy.

I told her that, no, she wasn't in my tummy. We talked again about how she was a baby in China and we came to China and adopted her, and that's how we met.

"Yeah," she said. "And now we're a family because a family is people who love each other."

(I think that's a direct quote from a Barney song, although we do support that general attitude.)

At the time, I felt like it was almost the perfect teachable moment to begin a conversation about Buttercup's birthmother. We talk all the time about adoption and her adoption, specifically. And she has had close contact with two women as they were pregnant. But this is the first time she has connected those dots, and come to the conclusion that she came from my body.

But the moment was not quite perfect to explain that, while she did not come from my tummy, she did come from someone's tummy. She did not appear from the ether in China all ready to be adopted.

We were eating in a restaurant, and we were with my mother-in-law and the food had just arrived, and in the context of that setting, I stumbled.

I've been kicking myself a little ever since then. I wish I could have handled it better. And while I know that I will have many opportunities to handle that conversation (or mishandle it) in the future, I feel like I missed a chance to talk about it casually and organically.

That night, Bee chose her bedtime stories as usual, and she chose "In My Heart," "Everywhere Babies" and "I Love You Like Crazycakes." We lingered a long time over the page in "Crazycakes" that talks about the baby's birthmother. The lingering was my choice, though, not hers. I wanted to give her the opportunity to ask about how that works. No, how does it really work?

She didn't ask.

She did, however, sleep entirely through the night, which is a rarity in our house. And in the days since, she has slept through the night more often than not.

I worried that night, as I was putting her to bed, that she might have even more trouble sleeping than usual as her brain and body tried to process this new information.

Now I believe that she is able to sleep better because what she knows in that wordless place that exists within us from the moment we're born and what she has learned in that front-of-the-head, Q&A-type information file we get from our parents and our conscious observations and our acquisition of languages make more sense together.

If it's not one thing, I'm a mother

You know, I can go for weeks without posting, and here I am posting for the second time today. And that doesn't even count the edit I performed on my previous post.

But maybe you'll forgive me when I tell you that I HAVE A DAUGHTER.

OK, I don't have her yet. But I know who she is. It is my distinct pleasure to present:

At 1:28 this afternoon, our agency called to tell us the news that we have been matched and are officially the prospective parents of this absolutely stunning girl who is turning 10 months old today.

Don't even TRY to tell me you've seen a more precious smile.

Stop - back up from the computer. You can't possibly smell her sweet head through the LCD screen.

Must. Not. Bite. Babies.

We now begin the wait for travel approval, which could take as long as 3 months. Thanksgiving? Christmas? Valentine's Day?

And the house? Still not closed. No further word from the Realtor. Just waiting. Waiting and dancing crazily around the house.

Have I mentioned that the house sale is funding this family-building effort?

That sound you hear echoing over the hills is the mad cackle of a woman who has let slip from her fingers the very last thread of reason.

The homestudy was the easy part

My friends who haven't adopted always whistle a little at the bureaucracy. All that paperwork. All those requirements to satisfy. All that mailbox watching as hopeful parents await word on whether they can move on to the next overly complicated step.

For most people, I think it's the idea of the homestudy that is the most daunting. A stranger comes into your house, interviews you about every aspect of your life and personality, and decides whether you are qualified to be parents.

You open all those things that most of us take for granted as private matters - our bank statements, tax returns, medical files, how we feel about our own parents, siblings, children, discipline, partners in parenthood.

I even cleaned and organized all my junk drawers and closets for our first homestudy, certain that, under the cold eye of a social worker, we would fail based on the number of loose nails that had filtered to the bottom of one of my kitchen drawers. (Actually, it wasn't a safety hazard, since the drawer was ordinarily too full to open anyway.)

But you know what I've discovered after completing one adoption and undertaking another?

The scrutiny of a homestudy is nothing compared to the scrutiny you will receive from other parents who have adopted.

Check out American Family's last two posts and the comments they generated, and you will see what I mean.

You can't swing a cat in the adoption community without smacking someone who will tell you (often unsolicited) The Right Way to name your child, dress your child, choose a community in which to make a home for your chid, educate your child, put your child to sleep, feed your child, instill in your child a positive racial identity and sense of cultural heritage.

If you belong to any of the adoption Yahoo groups, where "IMHO" means "you fucking whore, you're ruining your children's lives," you know what I'm talking about.

I think the pitbullishness of some of these conversations springs from the fact that most of us feel a little insecure about how we decide to do things. I mean, just being a parent is hard enough. When every decision you make as a parent is further scrutinized, dissected and judged, it's enough to make a person feel insecure. It's also like living in a whole community of mothers-in-law.

That insecurity can be a really positive thing when it is an honest self-evaluation that leads to more research, more education and more focus on doing what seems to be right for your child.

On the other hand, insecurity can be a really destructive thing when people feel their grasp is so tentative that the only way to hold on to their values is to swat down everyone else's.

I wish we could all back off a little. Take a breather. Maybe make some popsicles.

Of course, if you're not raising your Chinese daughter on 15 acres in the Northeast with three dogs, six chickens, a brother 14 years her senior and one of these, you're probably ruining her life.

Whore.

Paint it black - or maybe beige

We're painting today. Hallway, trim, maybe living room, maybe basement. The hallway and staircase are, in particular, a project that was begun but not finished. In fact, one night I painted so late and got so tired that I left the brush in the paint cup, ruining it.

This is why I will never be rich.

UNRELATED THINGS I HAVEN'T POSTED BECAUSE I'VE BEEN POSTING SO MUCH ABOUT MY GOTDAM ANTIDEPRESSANTS AND THEIR LOUSY SIDE EFFECTS

Ballet Love

I mentioned that Buttercup adored the ballet, in spite of the horrifying meltdown she experienced.

The show we saw was titled "Russian Extravaganza," and contained a sampling from various ballets, including Andantino (Tschaikovsky/Robbins), Romeo and Juliet (Prokofiev/Lavery) and Firebird
(Stravinsky/Balanchine and Robbins).

But Bee's favorite part of the show was a selection from "The Cage."

I'm not sure what she liked best. Maybe it was the costumes. Or it could have been the dynamic performance of the dancers. Or it could have been all the vicious nutcrushing and cockpunching.

(Note to Mr. Jerome Robbins: I am so sorry your mother didn't hug you enough.)

But the ballet has presented my Little Bee with a terrible dilemma: For Halloween, should she be a vampire, a pirate or a Spider Lady?

***

Schooled

I'm applying to a college. It's a school that is described in the literature as "More Selective," although I am applying to its program dedicated to losers like me who couldn't seem to get their degrees when everyone else did because we were too high/lazy/busy/poor/pregnant. I think this particular program is maybe "Less Selective" - especially in comparison to its traditional enrollment.

I'm writing an essay. I'm begging friends to write me letters of reference. I'm filling out financial aid forms. I'm looking at the course catalog and trying to choose a major.

It's just like being 18 all over again. Excuse me while I go get high/lazy/busy/poor/pregnant.

P.S. I know a couple of you are employed in higher ed. Any advice on the essay, reference letter front would be welcome. And it would relieve some of the burden from my poor sister-in-law, whom I am pestering on a near-hourly basis because, obviously, she's the only person I've ever known to got into a decent school.

I'm a nerd.

***

Me: What do you want for breakfast?

Buttercup: Blah blah boo.

Me: Is that like cereal?

Buttercup: Horgle glah!

Me: Hmmm. I'm afraid I don't quite get your banter. Once again?

Buttercup: I want dew drops.

Me: Dew drops?

Buttercup: Like Daisy Pixie. I want dew drops. Do we have dew drops?

Me: I think you need more TV and less reading.

***

Shop for good

I want to give a shameless plug for Love Without Boundaries (and no - that's not the title of my childhood memoir!), which helps provide surgeries and other necessities to children in Chinese orphanages.

It's an amazing group that does really life-changing work, and you can support them without spending any extra money. (Of course, should you WANT to spend extra money, no one will stop you.)

The next time you are shopping on Amazon, go to LoveWithoutBoundaries.com and click through their Amazon portal.

You call THAT a tantrum?

You know how it sounds when a toddler gets a shot? It's a cry like a really complex wine or artisanal chocolate.

There's the deep despair bottom note. Guuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. You can hear a combination of frustration and anger, but in all it is a fairly palatable cry. The middle note is all about catching your breath and demonstrating, in case anyone has missed it that, "hup,hup,hup, I'm crying over here. Really sad."

And then there's that top note - that shrill crisis screech. It's full of rage and horror and immediacy.

My daughter actually does fine at the doctor's office, and her vaccination cries are usually short lived.

On the other hand, if you are at the ballet on a long-planned girls' day with aunts and grandmas and good friends from NYC, and you have to make the long trek to the ladies' room in the rain, and it's already almost 3 p.m., and your Little Bee has not had anything that looks remotely like a nap, and you demand that she hold your hand because there's a crowd, and you have to wait in a long line in (did I mention) the rain, and the pretty dresses you both wore are getting soggy and cold, and when a stall finally opens up you lead Bee in there and close the door behind both of you so you are in there together when she had thought she would be in there alone (hup,hup,hup) apparently that is enough to set off the most blood curdling, terrifying, "Holy fuck, is someone torturing or kidnapping a child in the next stall?" wail you have ever heard.

No, I mean it. I will put this cry against any tantrum, whining, meltdown or wail your child has laid out there, because I am so confident that I can beat all your tantrums. Bring it. Because if you were to hear this, your ears would bleed and you would want to put me in jail because there is NO WAY a child should make that kind of sound unprovoked.

The secret is that, as far as my daughter is concerned, she had been provoked, and my suggesting that she use the bathroom was the last straw.

As she stood stiff, red-faced and SCREECHING in the bathroom stall, I went ahead and used the bathroom as quickly as I could, then got the HELL out of there. But the screeching didn't stop when we got outside. I knelt down next to her and informed her that, if she didn't calm down, we were going to have to leave the ballet, which she adored, by the way. A.D.O.R.E.D.

But she was not abut to calm down. The more she cried, the more she was going to cry.

She wouldn't allow me to carry her, and if I tried to hold my umbrella over her head or guide her to walk underneath it, the screams intensified as though I were zapping her with a taser. The result was that we both got soaked walking back to our seats to get car keys, raising concern every step of the way.

Left and right I got the "some people shouldn't have children" looks. People tried to intervene.

"Is she OK?"
"What happened?"
And one woman scowled deeply at me and, seeing my daughter walking in the rain, asked if I would LET HER give Buttercup her shirt to keep warm.

By the time we finally got to the parking lot, we were both crying.

I was so angry at my daughter. Furious that she wouldn't listen, that she wanted her way so badly down to every detail and when she didn't it, she howled in the middle of a large crowd like her name was Luka.

I was angry that we had planned this entire outing around getting Lila, her mother, the pregnant Sunshine, her sister, and Lila's college roommate/former bridesmaid to gather from distant corners so we could take Buttercup to the ballet, and the day was ruined.

We sat in the car for an hour. An hour of inconsolable screaming. I held out a little glimmer of hope that she might cry so hard that she would hyperventilate and pass out take a nice soothing nap.

She didn't, but she did calm down enough to accept some consolation, and within another 10 minutes or so, she climbed into my lap and rested her head on my shoulder.

Lessons:

- Shorter ballets or performances at a different time of day.
- Bring my own car so that we're not waiting in someone else's car for the show to end and making everyone feel awkward because, they love her and everything, but the last thing they want to do is get into a car with her.
- If it's raining, stay home.
- Ballet diapers!
- Ballet Kleenex!
- Ballet Xanax!
- Bring her Dad so that, when she begins wailing repetitively "I WANT my daddy I WANT my daddy I WANT my daddy" I can say, "Okey, dokey - there he is."

Things did get better, especially thanks to Lila, her mom and her college friend, who all
sort of took turns engaging Buttercup through supper and, since things were going so well, a little shopping.

But I have still been at the edge of tears all night.

My daughter takes on life as a full-contact sport. She is not laid back about anything. Ever.

And, good God, it's a lovely thing to see a child - or any person, for that matter - so engaged in her own happiness or excitement or affection. She blooms, then blooms again, and again and again and again.

And that is just pouring a glass of chocolate milk.

But when this thing happens - this particular type of tantrum - I am helpless. I am cursing myself for thinking we could make a short daytrip to the ballet. I am whispering out of her earshot that I hope she liked what she saw because we are never going to the ballet again. I am putting her in her carseat in the car and standing outside of the car in the rain because I fear my brain will leak out of my ears if I sit inside next to her.

But then she is calm, and I am calm. We've had a good day, and I am hoping she will bring home good memories. It's dark, and we are making the long drive home. Sunshine, in her tie-dyed maternity dress, is falling asleep with her fingers laced over the little bit of skin and muscle that separates her from her own daughter, due in just two months.

I wonder whether Buttercup would have fewer of these banshee tantrums if her first year had been an easier one. Sunshine's baby has been listening to her mother for months now. She feels those fingers laced over her knees or back. Buttercup did not hear my voice or feel my hands until she was a year old.

Buttercup, sitting between Sunshine and me, tries to find a comfortable position so she can fall asleep, too. It takes a while. A long while. She wraps her arms around my neck and pulls my face close to hers for nose kisses.

"I love you, Bee." I tell her.
"I love you, too," she says.

I'm sorry, I think to myself. I'm sorry I couldn't help you out better today. I'm sorry I couldn't ensure that our first trip to the ballet was unsullied by tears. I'm sorry I couldn't calm you down when you really needed me to.

I'm sorry I didn't get to talk to you and rub your back before you were born. And I'm sorry you lost the person who did.

I'm so sorry, Bee, that I can't be her.