She Who Is Both Angel And Demon
2006-11-08, 11:29

"Happy to you!" is Laurana's way (to say Merry Christmas to you) of saying, "Happy Birthday!" But she got to hear it sung to her on Sunday. Her birthday's not technically until this Saturday, but the party stars aligned best on Sunday, mainly because The Boy and Girl would be with us.

But boy oh boy, things did not look good leading up to it. Saturday, she decided that it would be best to absolutely refuse to take any kind of a nap. Strangely enough, this made for one screamy baby at some points during the day. She even woke up ornery, which is atypical for 'mama dada nana' (her way of saying, "yay, we're all together for the weekend!") mornings. She got mad at the drop of a hat (a concept about which I know absolutely nothing), and there were a couple of times where she did her old fashioned crying-for-so-long-I-forget-why for a good half hour each. And ohmygod can this girl be loud. The fact that my ears are adjusting to her volume tells me that maybe I should go see an ear specialist and see if my hearing has worsened over the last year.

So we spent Saturday evening telling her that it was very important to get a good night's sleep so she'd be ready for her party. We did the same thing on Sunday before her nap. And, as has happened before, negotiating and reasoning with her worked like a charm; she went to bed a little early, and she got a good two and a half hour's nap the next day.

She woke up from her nap as the first guests arrived for the shindig, and while she was somewhat standoffish at first, being groggy and all, she came around pretty quickly and was a complete angel the whole evening. Which is something to say, considering what birthday parties can do to kids. She was as gracious as a two-year-old can manage, providing kisses for needy grandparents, saying 'thank you' even once or twice on her own and without prompting, and keeping up with it pretty well with prompting. She did get that classic glazed-over look kids get when they're overwhelmed with their gifts and don't yet have the faculties to process it all.

And she got a pretty decent haul too, a good percentage of it being Dora the Explorer-based. (Apparently there are stores with whole aisles of Dora goods - which tells me from past experience that they're trying to squeeze what money they can from the franchise before it fades from popularity.) A doll; an adventure van with a Dora and her mom (whom I've got Laurana calling 'cita', as in 'mamacita', because I am a) stupid, and B) a very, very bad man) included; and a pop-up book that has buttons on the side that play songs. Also obtained: some cool stackey blocks, a little PVC-frame princess castle (which I need to find he time to assemble), and a tricycle (!). Egad, is she already old enough for a tricycle? Well, not quite, as she can still barely reach the pedals. But by spring, she'll be rollin' n' crashin' with the best of them.

I've got another installment of The Genius Baby Chronicles. Last night Laurana and I were watching a sing-along tape (yes, we still use a VCR! How quaint!) of Shirley Temple songs from a number of her movies. This is only the second time she's watched it. There's one particular song, where Miss Temple sings to her movie father, and out of nowhere, Laurana says, "Apple." I said, "I don't think there's an apple anywhere," and then two seconds later, one of Shirley's lines involved 'apple pie'. Could be coincidence, I suppose, but then, I'm predisposed to think that she knew what she was talking about.

And I think Laurana's getting to be enamored with Miss Temple. There were points where she was right by the TV and you could tell that she really wanted to be doing what Shirley was doing. She was actively memorizing songs - I could tell by the look in her eye and how she was trying to vocalize along here and there, quietly. Occasionally her hips started to sway, and I could practically feel her aspiration to be dancing. Awesome stuff. I'm really enjoying watching a human being go though the learning process full-time, like I didn't really get to do with the Boy and Girl when they were little. And if all goes well, maybe I won't manage to screw Laurana up completely.

H and I were talking about the Chinese adoption process last night, after I saw, the night before, a human interest piece my mom called to point out to me on one of the local six o'clock news shows. There was a couple from a town her in Ohio that adopted from China a girl who is now about four, and they started talking via Yahoogroups with another adoptive family (there's a scary big Chinese adoption message board community out there). They exchanged photos of their daughters and noticed an uncanny resemblance; they had the two girls' DNA compared, and it was shown that they were, in fact, sisters, potentially twins - super-slim chances that such a thing would happen (the magnitude of the event was sort of lost on the talking heads on the news - no surprise there). The thing is, though, they were adopted from different orphanages (and possibly different provinces - I don't recall specifically), which means that either the birth parents took the time to drive to two different places to give away their babies - possibly to cover their tracks and not get fined - or there's some sort of underground (or at least under the radar) baby redistribution process. This feeds my suspicions about the whole Chinese adoption system, which started in the realization that the orphanage building we were shown during our visit was more of a showroom than a true living quarter, because if our daughters had just come from there, than where did the full allotment of girls that were present during our visit come from? No wonder the place was spotless - I doubt it was actually used by babies for any length of time.

There's a blog that H pointed out to me that discusses some of the problems with Chinese adoption, and it's something I wish I'd known more about before we went - mainly so I could ask better questions while we were there, not because it would have kept me from doing it. There's nothing I'd trade for my little one, to be sure. Anyway, here's the link (click). Happy reading.

-- End Transmission --