Sunshine Almost Always

The sun poured in every window today. The cats stretched themselves out from head to tail in front of the glass door. Alex's "egg-head" filled with grass seed sprouted in the bay window and even Alex moved himself to a spot where he could bask in the golden glory. I can't remark on the temperature outside - we were all sick and never left the house - but from the inside, it looked and felt as if spring might actually return after all.

And it felt that way in our family too. It was a golden day. We could feel the impossibility beginning to thaw and something beautiful beginning to bloom.

It didn't start that way. As I said, we all awoke in various states of the same illness. Alex and Cate coughing. My head feeling the size of China and ready to burst. Steve reporting he was two days behind me. Alex announced it was all Cate's fault. Snarled at me. Pointed at his sister and ended up in time-out on the stairs before I could put the tea kettle on to boil. Moments later, Cate found herself in "time-in" on the couch for unprovoked hitting of her brother. And while I struggled to get the tea kettle filled and to the stove, I dragged two children along with me, one clinging to each leg, not out of their pure love for me, as I would have liked, but out of spite for each other.

At 8:30 a.m., up for less than thirty minutes, I looked at the clock and calculated the hours until bedtime. There were many. Oh so many.

But, then something happened. Maybe it was the sun pouring in the window, pulling us all out of the early spring snow-storm depression that brought sloppy snow and (YES) a snow day for Alex on Friday. Maybe it was the silent prayer, that was more like a plea for mercy. Maybe it was a week of patient and, lets be honest, not always so patient persistence with these two new siblings. Maybe it was all three. But the moods shifted and the day became one we won't forget.

The morning passed without much ado. We ate lunch. Cate went down for a nap. Alex and I did a craft... Alex even creating a picture that said, "Mom I Love U," much to my joy after the previous day's harsh rejection. The first good sign, I suppose, was that this all felt normal. Not forced or determined. The next good sign came when Alex asked after about an hour, if Cate was still asleep. She was. A big sigh. "Well, you can't just leave her up there all day you know," her new advocate reported huffily. Hmmm.... was he missing her?

We finished the craft. Spilled hot chocolate all over it. Cleaned up. And Cate was awake. Steve brought her down. She looked unhappy, and when she is unhappy, she looks injured, but not like a baby bird, she looks injured like someone looking for a trial lawyer willing to sue the pants off someone. When Cate is unhappy with something, the person responsible is given a look that leaves no doubt in his mind that what he is done is beyond unacceptable in her eyes. I am not sure where or how she learned to give a look like this, but I pity her boyfriends, her husband, her children and all of those of us along the way that she turns it upon. This look can come out of no where. It can be given in response to a green bean offered up at dinner. It can be given to someone who has been making her laugh, but tried to tickle her one too many times. It is given to her brother for almost everything. It is given to me when I take something (like a tube of lip gloss found in my coat pocket) out of her hand. And after the nap today, we will all recipients of THE LOOK just for looking at her. It didn't look promising.

But the sun did its work on her too. I brought her into the living room and put in a Baby Einstein DVD a friend has dropped off. It is about simple, everyday words, and shows the sign language for each word... maybe she could sign before she could speak... well, Cate wasn't interested, but Alex (the one we have rented 27 movies for during the past two days so he could rest, but not one of them could hold his attention for 15 minutes) was captivated. Go figure. Cate, instead, took off her socks and shoes. You cannot keep socks or shoes on this girl. She takes them off and then she puts them back on with skill and dexterity not often found in a two-year-old. She does this in her crib, in the car, anyplace. She needs no toys. Only socks and an occasional tissue or two. So, she took off her socks. And then mine. And she tried to put her socks on my feet. "They are two small," I said. "Put them on Alex." I knew I was taking a big risk here. At the every least, I would get THE LOOK. At the worst, she would touch him when he didn't want to be touched and all peace would be lost. But Cate laughed. Said "Al-yay," and ran to him. Putting socks on the small feet of a big brother is a challenge. And so, she put them on his hands. And he let her. And then, my heart skipped a beat, and so did Steve's. Cate took Alex by the hand, and hand-in-hand they walked to the other room. We both held our breath. And then we heard laughter. Two children laughing. A minute later, she led Alex back. His face had brightened, like the day. "I guess she likes me!" he said. And I saw so much anger dissolve. He had finally been accepted by his sister and it changed everything. They played like this for a long time. He made her laugh. She made him laugh and we all laughed together.

At dinner, Alex said, "In my heart, my heart is telling me I love Cate a little bit." (We've done a lot of talking about what is in our hearts recently). At bedtime, he searched his room for something to give her and settled on my 1988 MVP volleyball trophy, which might seem like small potatoes to you, but to Alex, this is a golden statue. The greatest of awards. As I read Cate a bedtime story, he carried it proudly into her room and announced that he was giving her the "honor of putting it on her book shelf for five days." Little did I know in 1988 the true reward of that trophy would come twenty years later.

And while I know this is just the beginning, that not all days can be like today, tonight, they went to sleep as friends - as a brother and a sister who love each other, just a little bit, in their hearts.

As we watched the relationship blossoming earlier, Steve looked over at me and said quietly, "We are going to be okay. We are a good family." And a good family is what we were today.

Almost the End

I have contemplated ending my blog. Our journey to China, is, after all, complete. Now begins our journey to becoming a family. But I am not ready to let it go just yet. I have thought of starting a new blog, and I think I will, but for now, I want to savor the last of our journey to Cate.

We have been home for one week. Only one week. It is hard to believe. There is a lot I did not anticipate. It has, honestly, been one of the most challenging and rewarding weeks of my life. I guess any seasoned parent will tell you that it is not easy to go from mother of one to mother of two. I had not anticipated the sheer difficulty of it. As our beloved pediatrician said today, Alex is mourning the loss of the relationship he shared with me and I the relationship I shared with him, and it has not been easy, but we are both ready for the next stage however difficult it may be to get there. And today was a better day than yesterday. But I did not anticipate the sadness or the guilt.

I also did not anticipate the new peals of laughter sounding through this house, the giggles of a little girl so pure that Steve and I look at each other and ask, "How could she have lived in an orphanage?" How could such joy bubble up from a girl who had so little? And I have to believe she had more than we thought. I think she has known a lot of love. Maybe not from a family. Maybe not in the best of circumstances. But this girl has been loved. I do not think often of her birth mother. Not yet. I know that will come. She knew her for such a short time. But I do think about her caregiver. I know she must feel an ache in her heart for this little one, now on the other side of the world.

Cate is pure joy. She is two. Full of games. Full of laughter. Full of tantrums and looks that rock the house. And now she is our pure joy to discover. Yesterday, she said "Mama," for the first time as my name. She has been able to say the word since we got her, but yesterday, it was clear, it had become my name. The tone was different. The intent. Likewise for "Baba." In two days, we have taught her how to hug. In three weeks, I have felt her body, once stiff and resistant, melt into mine, a little at a time. When I gave her a bottle before bed last night, she looked into my eyes, directly into my eyes. It was only for a minute and then she was looking away, and until that moment, I didn't realize that look had been missing. But there it was. Our eyes had met and for a moment, at least, she trusted me completely. It is an amazing thing to form a bond with a small girl from far, far away.

And so I looked tonight at my two sleeping children. The one whose moods and moves I can anticipate before he knows them himself and the one I know so very little about but am eager to discover as her trust in me grows. My life feels complete. And this is what I had anticipated all along.

Alex is back to school today. It is "Silly Day" in honor of Dr. Seues and he is in full silly costume- homemade hat, mismatched socks and shoes, pj's under his T-shirt and pirate pants. In reality, he looks no sillier than he does any other day since he started dressing himself, but this outfit required effort, and I thank Nate's mother for informing us that silly day had arrived... otherwise Alex would have gone to school wearing an Olympic T-shirt and his emperor hat, and that certainly would not have been silly at all. I had hoped to leave Cate at home when I brought Alex back to school - attempting to recreate the normalcy of his life BEFORE and assuring that all attention would be on him for his first day back. But, as Cate does not allow me out of her sight for five minutes, let alone twenty, I could see this scenario would create undo stress. Besides, I reasoned with myself, this IS our new reality. My next idea, was to somehow dress these two children (one in special silly day clothes, which would certainly take several attempts to get just right) and myself, AND get to school early. Early, before the other families arrived and in that way, Alex could get back in the swing of things with the full attention he desperately needs right now. And it almost happened that way, it really almost did... but first, look at the whole morning.

I awoke this morning at 4:45 a.m. (awoke is a generous term here, and by it, I mean, accepted the fact that it was no longer night and sleep should be forgotten) to Cate whimpering and an unpleasant aroma filling the air. While her sleep schedule is adjusting to her new time zone, her other bodily functions are trying to catch up. I stumbled around for my glasses. I knew I had put them by the bed, but they were no where to be seen, not that I could have seen them anyway because I am blind as a bat without them. I tripped over something to her crib and pulled out her whimpering, still sleeping body and began to peel back the multiple layers of clothes that encase her while she sleeps as waves of nausea started to rise in my own body. Anyone who has parented or cared for a young child knows all too well what that smell means. It means a body, covered. It means wondering how to get that body out of the layers of clothing without covering it with a trail that goes from toes to hair. And in this particular case, it meant doing it in the semi-darkness, without seeing and trying hard not to cover myself . I promise, this will be the last very personal detail I will share about my daughter, as she does have a right to privacy, but for now... We got through it. I put her back in the crib, and blessedly, she went back to sleep. I tried, and quickly abandoned hope, opting instead for a cup of tea and a little quiet time to myself.

I got up. The house was freezing. A fresh layer of snow covered the "spring" ground. A ripple of fear swept through my body - was there ice under it? Would there be a snow day today? There just had to be school. Had to be. I made it down the stairs, tripping over the dozen or so plastic eggs that lie everywhere around our house, walked to the stove, pausing to pull Easter grass out from between my toes, put on the tea kettle... what was that I heard? Small feet following closely behind. Alex, up for the day. Good bye quiet time, but it wasn't so bad. It gave me a chance to give him a little cuddle of his own - one he did not have to share and one that I did not have to navigate with comments like, "Come on you two... both sides of my lap are just as good as the other. Alex, please don't put your foot there, that is your sister's leg. This is your leg. Cate, it is okay if I talk to your brother sometimes." It is good to be popular, but it comes at a cost.

We made it through breakfast. One meal for Cate, one for Alex, one for me, and fortunately, Steve is self-sufficient and is now able to feed Cate. I kicked aside the plastic egg shells and shoved the array of hats, mittens, dishes, mail, telescopes and sippy cups cluttering the counter. I tip-toed around yesterday's egg yolk on the floor and wondered where to toss the new pile of freshly soiled clothes. I tried to turn on the T.V, for Alex, jumping over the fallen playhouse, a mountain of blankets, an abandon Easter basket, a pair of plastic sunglasses and an apple core that must have been there from our pre-China days... had it been dragged out from its hiding place by a mouse in the night? On the table, my list of to-do's - kindergarten registration, bills due, thank you's to write, phone calls to return, and I wondered just what I thought was so difficult in my hotel room in China? Was it really that challenging to live in a small room with only three toys and our four sets of clothes sent to Stella in the morning to be laundered and sent back in neat piles wrapped in plastic each afternoon for only $10? Was it so hard to get dressed and head down to a breakfast buffet that could feed a small nation and return to my room where the beds had been made and the bathroom put in order? Was that really a challenge? What was it about home that we needed? I thought I needed my hair styling products since I lost the one thing I had brought somewhere between Beijing and Guangzhou, but even looking at the collection, Aveda for frizzy hair nestled next to Paul Mitchell for smooth, next to Suave for curls, filled me with a sense of dismayed pressure. If I owned all these products, had them all at my fingertips, I must be expected to use them and look like I had used them. In China, I just said, "I lost my mousse, and every woman nodded a kind of knowing nod and expressed her deepest sympathy with her eyes, in a way no man (metrosexuals not withstanding) could ever understand.

And so, I find myself, again at home, and happy. I have unpacked slowly. With each item put away, with each souvenir handed out, China recedes a little further, and while I hesitate to let her go, I am anxious to feel the heartbeat of a normal day. A normal night. The boredom and comfort of routine.

And so, Alex was ready for school. Ready early. Cate was dressed. Her shoes found and put on, her coat and hat on (by this time, it was raining and sleeting that early spring type of rain) and we headed for the door... but wait. What was that smell? Off with the shoes, the coat, the pants. And so, Alex was a little late. Just a little. And it didn't matter that he was late, or that Cate was with us and shared the attention. A "Welcome Back, Alex" sign hung on the door. A favorite teacher waited inside who scooped him up and hugged him furiously and all the silly hats and clothes gave the feeling of a party, just for him. Cate got gentle welcomes and words of praise. And it was good to be home.

Some pictures

Early morning

Oprah highly discourages eating a bowl of beef stew and a hunk of Italian bread at 2:30 a.m. It goes against every principle on her weight loss plan. But Oprah has probably never been up at 2 a.m. with two jet-lagged children two nights in a row, and while this is the pits, there is something irresistableabout a little girl in fuzzy, pink one piece jammies and a wide-eyed boy happy to be back in his own castle. Even at 2 a.m.

It was at about this time yesterday morning that I realized we would all be okay. I have felt an unexpected sadness about Alex being pushed into the role of the big boy. I know it is crazy and that everyone who has a younger sibling eventually experienced this right of passage, but the guilt of motherhood is heavy and I wondered is I would ever again see that innocent little boy who painted "Alex and Cate" on a T shirt and covered it with hearts, that little boy who went crazy every time he saw a lantern or saw a Chinese character. Would he be back, now that his fantasy had turned to reality?

He emerged yesterday at 4 a. m. as he ate his third bowl of cereal and prattled non-stop about the virtues of milk - healthy bones, healthy eyes, and what about carrots? They are so healthy too. I listened over tea and knew he would be okay.

We left NJ around 7 a.m. and both Alex and Cate slept the entire four hour drive home. "Home," we told Cate. "We are staying here. This is your home." And as the day unfolded, it felt that way. Two siblings, feeling their way around. Each already jealous of the other. Each already pushing the buttons of the other. And an occasional moment or two, where they would play together happily.

Cate met her Nonni and Otsey, here waiting with dinner and balloons and flowers, waiting for their family to be back. And it took a few hours, but Cate, little Cate whose world has changed ten times over during the past two weeks, started to open up and laugh and play.

There is one good thing about jet lag. It lends a dream-like quality to this unbelievable experience. Both ends of our trip are clouded by its haze, and if it were not for this snugly, pink girl sitting next to me, I would wonder if we were ever really there. Were we there on the other side of the world? Were we there in China? I have only to look to my left to see that the dream has come true.

The Eagle has Landed in Newark

We are back in the USA and much has transpired since my last post.

Most importantly - Steve has been able to pick Cate up! Only for a few moments, and only in search of me, but it is a major milestone. And I have to add, that she looks for him everywhere... when he is out of sight, she is not happy and she truly looks to him when she wants to play. I predict within a month of two, she will be a daddy's girl, and my work will be done.

Cate became a U.S. citizen in Newark. I wondered as we handed over the sealed documents from the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou, the ones with warnings written all over them that we were not to break the seal, if she could have any idea what this would mean to her someday. I was carrying her in a little hip bag, and for the first time during our very long, wearisome day, she was a bit fussy. So, she cried and complained as the customs official broke the seal and I thought of how very many people around the world would dream of this moment, even recognizing what they would leave behind, would dream of this chance to come to this country and call it home. And I realized, what we had dreamed for Cate was just a place to call home. And tomorrow, she will see that home for the first time.

But, first, our swearing in. I will admit to getting a little teary, even as the youngish adoption officer asked about what state we were from, joked about sports teams and then had us raise our hands and swear and oath that everything we had said in our documentation was true (as if there could have been the possibility of falsehood after all the fingerprinting, clearances and references we have provided). Anyway - it was short. Over in ten seconds, and not nearly the solemn occasion I had imagined in my mind. But still, it was done, and Cate was 100% ours, ready to take home, in both the eyes of China and the U.S.A., and so a tear did come to my eye.

That evening, Steve and Alex had plans so I went to meet our new friends for dinner at a Chinese regional restaurant in the hotel. I just could not order a pizza on my last night in China and I wanted to seize my last opportunity for something authentic. Without the energetic Alex, I planned for a relaxing meal, and then back to the room to pack before our 5 a.m. wake-up call. But, I was wrong. It was Cate, easy-going, quiet Cate, who lost it at dinner. Just as the first course of the meal was delivered, she lost it. Lost it in that way from which you know there will be no recovery. We fled. Ran to the elevators and had to wait five crying, terror-filled minutes before an empty car opened up. I took her to the room, and she cried and cried and cried with an anger and anxiety that broke my heart. I have seen this same out-of-control, angry, over, over-tired cry from Alex. But in Cate, I felt it was a little more, almost like she knew that another great change was coming, before she had figured out who we were and where she was and why she kept waking up in different places, and where were all the people she had known before? I tried to give her a bottle, but she threw it. I put her in her crib, and for the first time, she screamed. So, I did what I would do with her brother in that state, I picked her up, and held her tense, fighting body as closely to me as I could and I started to sing. And in that moment, I became her mother. For real and forever. In that desperate moment, she quieted, and put her head on my chest, and I became her mother. To me, and I think, to her.

Steve and Alex came back shortly after that, and our new, dear friends, had my meal packed and brought to my room. And we sat on the floor, all together, and ate, which is probably what we really needed most before packing and a 5 a.m. wake-up call.

Somehow, we managed to fit it all into our luggage - all we had brought and all we had acquired in China. It was outside of our hotel room at 6 a.m. We carried two sleepy children to breakfast and then boarded the bus to the airport for the first leg of our flight - the trip back to Beijing. And here is how it went.... When I stepped off the bus at 7:30 a.m., I knew my new baby had a bad smell. What I did not know until I stood up was that the source of that bad smell was running down my shirt, down my pants and onto my shoes. And so begins the journey of 24 hours and 12 zillion miles. What I also did not know was that that same baby would need to be changed ten times in the teeny-teeny-tiny bathroom of an airplane ten times that same day... so memories of my trip home will be clouded with a certain aroma I would rather forget. We ran out of diapers. We ran out of wipes. We ran out of clean clothes. Luckily, there were friends to help with the first two items and her brother's extra set of clothes to help with the other.

The first few hours of the trip were the hardest. Overtired parents and children are not a good match, especially when you arrive at the airport and discover you have towait to board a very crowded bus to get to your plane.We finally arrived in Beijing about five hours later, only to discover our flight was delayed by two hours, turning our three hour lay-over to five. But, ever attempting to be the optimist, I decided this would increase the chance that we would all sleep on the way home. And we did, and 14 hours didn't seem as long as it had going to China, although we had a new traveller along. As luck would have it, Cate and I shared an aisle with a kind Chinese man, who now lives in Canada, and a smiling face can put a very different spin on a trip than one whose eyes say, "Oh, great. I am next to a kid." Cate did well, and I will always be grateful to the kind eyes and curiosity of of our smiling seat-mate.

And so, we arrived in Newark, and unexpectedly, I found myself again, choked up and my eyes filled with tears. We had made it. This whole incredible, tiring, fantastic, stressful and memorable journey. We had made it. We had brought Cate home.

Tonight, we stay with Omi and Pop Pop, and much to our surprise, Cate seems to have quickly felt almost at ease here. We don't know if she has ever been in a home before and here she is with her grandparents and her uncle, a dog and a cat and an Easter basket. Has she ever been given a present? She gives little notice to the toys, but carefully organizes the candy. Now she sleeps, in a crib bed made just for her. What does she make of it all? We don't know. At times she laughs and smiles, at others, seems overwhelmed. But I hope that she knows, as crazy as it all has been, as crazy as it all will be, as crazy as we all can be, she is with her forever family now.

East Meets West

It is our last day in China. It is hard to believe. It seems we have been here a lifetime, and then again, not much time at all. It is a good day for farewell, the kind that leaves a feeling of bittersweet, of leaving a place just a little too soon, and hoping someday to return. The sun is shining bright, it is about 80 degrees, Alex and Hazel have spent the day together, laughing and playing, at the playground, in the pool. They have had such fun and it is all so beautiful here, so while our thoughts our turned toward home, we grasp at every last second we have in China.

In about a half an hour, we will meet our group for the famous "Red Couch Photo." This picture is taken of every group of adopted children who stay at the White Swan on their journey to America. Today is the day when the six beautiful children of our group will sit in Chinese costume and have their photo taken. I expect some tears will be shed - by babies, by parents, by grandparents and family - by all. Then we are off to the consulate for the swearing in ceremony.

This will probably be my last post from China, and I am too emotional to write more now as this trip I have dreamed of for so long come to its end. We are to have our luggage in the hall tomorrow at 6 a.m., and catch the bus to the airport at 6:30 a.m., so tonight will be busy with packing and preparing.

See you back on the other side of the world!