Family-versary

It's our Family-versary! (This is not my term, but I love it. I've stolen it from Jane, a woman I have never met. Jane is a wonderful and funny writer, an attentive, loving and humorous mother, and she has two girls, one the same age as XX.)

So, three years ago, a nanny placed a tiny person into my arms. The paperwork said she was a mere 14 pounds, but, in fact, she was only 13. She was in newborn-sized clothes until she was a year old when we ceremoniously moved her into 3-6 month clothing and size 2 diapers. Small, but mighty. May 28, 2006 and some video.

She's come a long way. A whopping size 2T and the lungs have grown exponentially. No one is louder than this tiny person and she revels in this excellence.

Today was an easy day. We spent some time cleaning and then went to Mandarin class. After we picked up Daddy from his meetings, we had popcorn while watching our China videos. Then the three of us did some bowling (Wii) and afterwards, ate pizza. Simple, fun, together.

More joy for us is the fact that our dearest friends are in China now adding to their family. I grabbed a screenshot this evening:

All around, a Happy Day.

Bits and Pieces

It's been a while since I posted. We have had a lot going on.

The day after we returned from Uncle Glen's service, we participated in the Dog Walk for Cancer. Seemed especially appropriate this year. The cameras were clicking more on XX in her tiger suit than on the dogs it seemed. She, together with Ariel, won a lot of admirers and they even showed up on this blog: uni-formcity

I loved this tiny Husky-like dog, a Klee Kai.


XX has been playing tiger a lot. She crawls around, pretends to eat and drink out of bowls, rests, does her enrichment exercises, and roars.

When she's not tigering, she's singing and dancing. "Wǒ yào chàng gē (or tiào wǔ), xiǎo Yummy." She lives in costume and in character.

There appears to be some made-up lyrics and even some made-up English. I love that she has a quick excuse for the loss of balance.

There are even made-up (I assume) Chinese lyrics.

Unfortunately, we won't be around for what would be her first dance recital, but that doesn't stop her from practicing. Hours upon hours.

XiaoXiao can tie her own shoes. She's become an expert, tying quickly and tightly. She enjoys the fact that, for now at least, we both wear size 7 shoes.

She loves to fix my hair. If you see a woman with wild hair full of ponytail bands, flowers, and barrettes, it will be me.

She is always dramatic. Even in sleep.


She makes her own bed every morning and is the best helper when it comes to housecleaning, especially wiping down surfaces and vacuuming. She looks forward to the day I will let her clean the toilets. So do I.

On Daddy's broken hedge clippers: "We should not keep those because we don't keep things that don't work. We should share them with someone who likes things that don't work."

On her stuffed tiger: "Minty is a girl. He's a she."

When I wondered about John putting his laptop in a precarious position, XX chimed in: "Precarious? What does that mean? You mean it's not sitting in a stable position?"

Last week when her teacher came in to her Mandarin playgroup, she greeted XX and then asked her a question in Chinese. XX answered quickly in English, "No, not today." Another question and an excited, "YES!" and XX flew into the room with her teacher. So I think she really must be understanding well. The teachers tell me she is speaking to them in the room, simply, but in Chinese.

A favorite game is traveling. She gets in her travel seat and tells me she's going here or there, sometimes she has a "wheel" in her hand, sometimes she's riding. I always hear what's going on in the plane or car, she's not a quiet or passive traveler. I think it will be a long time before she outgrows her carseats.


The first thing we did this morning was put on the computer in hopes of receiving a phone call from China. We weren't disappointed! We all got to say hello to Kim, Craig, Kyra and LIAM!!! He looks like he fits right in and apparently has a healthy appetite. Definitely one of the family. Kyra and Liam

We spent the afternoon with Jamie, Lauren, Isla, Brad and Steph.

Perfect weather, the whole family -- what could be better?

Mother's Day

I really enjoyed Mother's Day this year.

Generally, I'm not much for celebrating days that are to do with me. I don't need gifts, I don't like fuss. Moreover, Mother's Day seems like a Hallmark holiday. Whether or not it began as such, it seems to have become the "mother lode" of commercialism.

There have been some incredible cards and wonderful phone calls from Brad and Jamie over the years, there have been some great cards from my dogs. Always much sweetly considered emotions from John. But then, six years ago, on the day before Mother's Day, we had to put down our first dog, Portia. Beyond excruciating. In addition to missing my own mother for too many years, the day took on memories.

Three years ago, we had XX's photo, but not XX. Two years ago, I was still overwhelmed with motherhood and no sleep; I wasn't sure I was fit to be celebrated as a mother in any form or fashion. Last year, we were fresh into the tragedy of Dad's fatal accident.

This year was different. On Thursday, XiaoXiao came running out of her Mandarin class with some tissue paper and pipe cleaner flowers. "These are for you, Xiao Mum! For Mother's Day!" She was thrilled, but not nearly as much as I was. They are the first gifts she's made for me. She checks them daily to be sure the pretend water is filled to the top of the vase.

Friday, I got flowers from Steph and Brad (I believe this to be Steph's doing -- and I loved them!). Then a party at Jamie's office and, after, dinner with Brad and Steph. Today a call from Jamie. And this morning, as always, I woke up to a "Xiao Mum? Yummy? I love you" along big hug and kiss. She asked Daddy to make up a song and when he started off, "Who's the greatest person in the whole world?" she shouted in answer (and direction), "MOMMY! MOMMY! MOMMY! Say it's Yummy, Baba!" She loved the song, I loved her enthusiastic sentiment.

The weather cooperated and instead of rain, we had sun. Daddy fixed lobsters and corn for dinner. XX ate well and went to sleep quickly. It has been a pretty fabulous couple of days.

Sending (and relishing) love.

More

On this day last year, we lost my dad. My body has been tense all day, almost as if it, too, knew. But incredibly, the sun came out for a short bit just at "the moment," and so XX and I went outside. We all took a walk and had a lovely chat with a neighbor who was working in her garden. Dad loved his yard, so it seemed fitting that nature cooperated to make us feel better.

This year we have more loss. My amazing Uncle Glen, lost to cancer on April 23.

with his adored and adoring granddaughter, Kara

XiaoXiao and I, freshly back from the joys of the wedding, got back on a plane, not so much to grieve, but to celebrate the life of my uncle. We were not the only people to travel. The lines to pay respects at the church went out the door and down the block for hours. Friends and relatives flew in from all over -- they loved him, and in turn, I am sure they know he loved them, too. He was love and compassion personified. (Unless you were a fly in his garage. Horrifying to watch him zap those buggies with his blow torch!)

When the weather was bad where I live, he cringed. On occasion, he would call and say, "Come visit! It's warm!" I could be sure he was thinking of me when it snowed. Talking to him was like getting a big hug. He made me smile, he made me feel safe and cherished.

I am grateful to have had one extremely special summer living with him and Aunty Ione. He did everything for me and I hope, in some small measure, I helped him quit smoking. (Apparently, I was a monster about this - taking his cigarette packs whenever possible or just emptying them so that when he went for one ....) Against Aunty Ione's wishes (she wanted me to suffer the uphill bike ride to my summer job as I'd failed my driving test. In her pregnancy, she was grouchier than ever!), Uncle Glen drove me to work. He was there for me. He was my pal.

My uncle loved children. This was mentioned several times at his service; he would have been happy to see how many kids attended and how well they behaved. He would even have enjoyed XX asking if she could get up and dance when the Buddhist priest started chanting. The laughter and play that went on after the service was all in his honor, I'm sure.

[In a side note: The priest/minister remembered our family from my grandfather's funeral service and his one year memorial service and reminded our family beforehand not to laugh or talk. (Yipes! Appalling really, that we're so poorly behaved. At the one year memorial, a certain tiny baby who happened to be in my arms, ahem, started singing ... loudly ... with the chanting. This set us all off, one by one, into hysterics.)]

Somehow, my uncle's passing doesn't feel so terrible. This was a well-lived, well-loved and loving life. I'm happy Uncle Glen's not suffering. I'm happy he was able to be at work two days before he left us. I'm happy he got to spend so much time with Kara. I'm happy to have had such a special person in my life.

So while his passing was sad, the week wasn't about sadness. In Uncle Glen's world, there was always time for children. Rather than quantity, he opted for quality of life. A wise man.

And so, there was time for a quick trip to the beach with much exploring, digging and squealing.

In Uncle Glen's world, there was always time for friends.

There was time for a playdate with Mackenzie (thanks to Aunty Ione, who has always even during this enormously hard time taken care of us. I owe her more than I can ever repay). I have never seen people of any age take to each other as quickly as these two spitfire girls.

Uncle Jarvis gets to see what it would be like to have two little girls giving hugs

XiaoXiao and I also took a moment to visit the plot of land where Dad rests with my mother. We only stayed long enough to take a deep breath and let XX call out cheerfully "I love you, YeYe!" I am sure Dad smiled. It was good to go. It's the first time I've been there without my Uncle Glen. He took me when I said I didn't need to go, he took me when I didn't especially want to go. He always took me and he held onto me through it. I think I may have gone this time more for him than for me.

These two men taught me there are many times when "more" trumps "enough" -- listen more, help more, be there more, laugh more, give thanks more.

To Dad and Uncle Glen, "gān bēi!" and "kampai!"

Much

So much has happened these past few weeks, it will take me a few posts to catch up. I'll start at the top.

We went to see our Brad and our Steph get married.


We had the best time. In addition to making Steph an "official" member of our family (not an issue because we claimed her immediately, whether she liked it or not), we meshed with all of her gi-normous clan. One of the most memorable lines of the weekend was when XiaoXiao looked around the room at one of the dinners and said, "Wow. We have a big, BIG family." It both warmed and broke my heart to hear this child who, three years ago had no one, say that she felt she was a part of such a wonderful hug (Steph's family, like ours, believes in hugs. We definitely missed having Jewel with us, our "oooo-eeeee" ambassador).

XX got to be part of the bridal party.


Unfortunately, this meant that she was able to pull, no, make that YANK the bridal veil just before Steph was ready to go down the aisle. Can you say "whiplash?" We hope Steph can still turn her head from side to side.

XX also did not walk in a stately manner with the boys. She ran. Shrieking happily. Then the four children ran to a railing and started swinging like little monkeys. But you know, Brad and Steph said they did not want a serious wedding and they wanted family and children to be a part of it. They got it. It was lovely and joyous and memorable.

XX had a great time with Fausto.


XX met and loved the Janets. Here is one of them. They told her that she was "XiaoXiao," they were "JanetJanet." We hope to see both of them again soon.

She adored Allie and Drew.


She was entranced by the ever-lovely Marion, or "Nana." XiaoXiao loves to watch the short video I took of Marion singing "I'm a Little Teapot." "Can we watch Nana sing?" is a familiar request.

In an odd, six degrees sort of scenario, my mother's best friend, my lovely and loving other mother happened to be on the same plane and we found out, was staying at the same place. (As we live in different states, this demanded much chance.) All purely by luck/coincidence/joss. We were able to have lunch with Kathleen and her friend while we were there. The "chance" meeting brought home the message of family and fate. Always Joss.


It was a perfect and perfectly wonderful weekend.

Wedding cake!

The tropical weather meant XX's hair curled and curled.

XX and Mum, or Yummy, as she now calls me.

Lots of beach and pool time. (The child never burns, only tans perfectly.)

Excellent sleeping.

Best of all, a new sister.