Asian Santa

So I was talking with a friend of mine, who is African American, and we were both bemoaning the fact the we don't have any of our Christmas decorations up yet.  Procrastinate much?  Yes, we do! Then she mentioned that she had found the most beautiful black Santa over the summer and was looking forward to putting it out.  That's when I started thinking about something new.  

If Santa Clause is for children and our children will be Asian do we need to make an effort to have Asian Santa Clause figures?  How important is it that children see iconic figures like Santa representing their own race?  Of course, I don't know the answer to that.  I'm just hitchhiking my way through this world but it did raise some interesting ideas.  Once again, I was grateful to have dialogue with friends from all races to remind me that being white is just one state of being and one that my children will not share.  

I think, because we are a transracial family who is making an attempt to be anti-racist, we are going to represent Santa in all of his racial identities: black, asian, white.  For the folks who will inevitably ask, "But won't that confuse the children?"  I intend to steal  from James McBride's amazing memoir of growing up in a transracial family.  If you haven't read it - IT'S WONDERFUL!  In that book, he recounts being teased by some kids about being mixed race.  Afterwards, he asked his mother what color God was.  His mother wisely responded by saying, "God is the color of water."  So in our house, God and Santa are both going to be the color of water, and we're going to try to have pictorial representation in every race.  

BTW though - finding these Asian Santas is extremely hard!!  I will certainly be combing specialty stores and buying one as soon as I see it, whenever I see it, for the rest of my life.  If anybody has any leads on where to get good racially diverse decorations please let me know.

- Rosemary

Wishes For Her

One of the oddest things about adoption is that it has caused me to have an emotional relationship with two people I will probably never meet.  Our child's other parents.  Brian and I are using a lot of terminology right now: birth parents, biological parents, first parents and other parents.  Everything respectful is fine with us (the always disparaging and uncomfortable real parents is out).  If we could ever meet our child's first mom we would ask her how she would like our family to refer to her and then we would simply honor her request.  But that is one more thing we probably won't ever be able to discuss with her.  

I wonder what questions she wants to ask me and can't?  Maybe there is a beautiful Thai woman sitting on the other side of the world thinking, "I wish I could ask my child's adoptive mom this but it's just one more thing that I'll never get the chance to say."  I wish I could meet her and answer her questions.  I wish I could meet our child's birth father too.  I know a lot of other people feel differently about this for their families and that's fine too.  There many ways to handle adoption.   

I think about our child's first mom a lot.  We do not presume to know her life.  We don't make assumptions that either vilify or canonize her.  All we know is that she's a woman who is having a child and is also, obviously, going through something very hard that has caused her to make an adoption plan for her baby.  We can only imagine that this is a terrible or at the very least difficult experience for her.  

I don't really know what I'm trying to say here.  But you know how something little can happen and help your day out?  The guy behind you in line loans you 2 pennies when you don't have exact change.  The woman at the bank smiles at you.  Your Grandmother calls just to say she loves you no matter what.  Your best friend tells you a story that makes you laugh until a little pee comes out.  Your favorite tv show is on and it's a really good episode.  All the small things that don't do anything to change the awful realities of life but somehow manage to make each day of it more bearable.  Well, I hope that during this very difficult time, our child's first mother, has a king's ransom of tiny-everyday-good-things happening to her that help make it all a bit better.

- Rosemary

Sesame Street Memories

So all of you stranger-friends out there in blog world won't know this, but I nannied my way through school.  Sure it's hard taking care of somebody elses kids and, yes, I was always glad to leave at the end of my shift but I really did love those children and I learned so much from our time together.  During my years nannying for preschoolers, I developed a very great appreciation for Sesame Street, which in my opinion, is probably more valuable than Kindergarden.  

With one family, I had this great 3 yr. old boy who really needed routine.  Every morning when I arrived at his house I would make us both an "egg in a nest".  Piece of bread with a circle cut out of the center - fry an egg in the center of the toast and you have your nest.  Butter and toast the remaining circle of bread and that's your "birdy".   This little idea never stopped delighting him. Then we would settle down to watch Sesame Street.  It was just as enjoyable as an adult as it had been when I was a kid.  Watching Sesame Street together in our pj's on rainy mornings is definitely one of those specific little things I am looking forward to sharing with our child.

Recently Babble, a very cool online magazine for parents, ran a fun article on the fifty greatest moments in Sesame Street history.  I'm a little embarrassed to admit that Brian and I watched all of the clips and actually laughed out loud at some.  However, they did not choose my favorite clip of all time so here it is: Witness the mournful Cookie Monster

what really matters

So it has been a very hard week here.  I'm incredibly disappointed that my trip got cancelled! Then, on top of that, because I was supposed to be in Thailand Bri already had a ticket to go see his family in Texas and we really felt it was important to prioritize that so... I ended up spending Thanksgiving alone.  I know: pitiful, right?  Anway, I'm trying to pull focus and remember what really matters.  So I decided to share some of my favorite pictures of exactly that.  I hope you'll enjoy these with me.

The gardens at our

 girl's rescue home in Chiang Rai.  

BTW - If it seems like I'm being obtuse in not saying the name of the home I work for it's because we're purposefully trying not to. We haven't asked permission to do that on this blog and we want to respect the privacy of everyone else involved.

The jungle-gym is everyone's favorite hangout!

Brian giving piggyback rides.

Because most of our girls don't know the day of their birth is we have an annual campus-wide birthday party with cake, presents and "celebration of being".  

Two of our middle grade girls proudly wearing full Akha dress.  Almost all of our kids are Akha, a tribal people group represented in Thailand and other Asian countries.  Of course, our kids wear regular clothes most of the time.  Their heritage dress is reserved for special occasions and ceremonies.  It is extremely important to us that our kids feel deep respect for their tribal culture.

Brian and I with our sponsor daughter.  Isn't she beautiful?  Not that I am biased or anything but she is the smartest, greatest kid on earth!

Political Strife in Thailand

For anyone who's been watching the news out of Bangkok the last couple of days, it will come as no surprise that Rosemary's company cancelled her trip. We're very disappointed but grateful that she's not stuck in the Bangkok airport.  

For those who haven't heard, there's a long story leading up to it. For several months, a group called the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) have been protesting, mostly in Bangkok, against the current government. The current situation has its roots in the 2006 bloodless military coup that ousted then Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. I won't do it the injustice of trying to encapsulate the whole story here, but you can learn more about it on Wikipedia.  

The protesters, who have been mostly nonviolent and civil, have been occupying the Government House (parliament building) in Bangkok since late August.  The demonstrations have been mounting ever since, and have been expanding throughout the city.  On Tuesday, protesters stormed police lines at Suvarnabhumi airport, Bangkok's main international airport, and broke through airport security checkpoints, rendering the terminal unusable.  Flights already in the air bound for Bangkok were diverted to Chiang Mai, Phuket, or sadly to Mumbai. All other incoming and outgoing flights were cancelled on the ground.  Worst of all, travelers who were in the airport have been stuck there.  In the past few days, the PAD has allowed buses to come and transport the civilians back into the city, although there appear to be a few hundred people still stuck in the terminal (down from around three thousand on Tuesday). 

The Prime Minister yesterday authorized the police to forcibly remove the protesters to allow the airport to be reopened.  He has since backed down from this position, probably in response to PAD leader Chamlong Srimuang's threat that any force from the police will be met with force from the protesters, and with a "people's uprising" all over the country.  I don't know enough about Thai politics to presume to have an opinion, but we're all keeping a close eye on things.  

What we hope for most is for continued peace, stability, and democracy in Thailand.  Our thoughts and prayers are with Jay and Chandra, and anyone else who is due to travel soon. We hope that this situation causes as little disruption as possible in people's adoptions, and that Thailand remains a safe and stable place for our children until we can bring them home with us. For up-to-the-minute news on this situation, I've been relying on bkkok.com

 - Brian

Adoption Conference

This weekend we attended the 28th annual APC Adoption Conference.  It was a really interesting day and we learned a lot.  In fact, I feel like I am on information overload.  They had a great program lined up and the cost was really affordable ($75 a person) so if you live within driving distance of NYC I would definitely recommend attending next year!

They had multiple sessions provided in every workshop hour so for much of the day Bri and I split up.  However, we did go to a few sessions together.  We both heard and loved Dr. Jan Arronson, adoptive parent, advocate and pediatrician speak about medical concerns for internationally adoptees.  If you ever get the chance to hear her - GO - she's fantastic!  Click here for more information about her  services.  We also heard a very interesting speaker named, Dr. Boris Gindis, speak about abrupt first language loss in international adoptees.  I was very reassured to hear him say that for most children adopted under the age of 3 there will be no long term affects.  However, he did urge all adoptive parents whose young child will suffer 1st language loss to seek early intervention and speech therapy.  So that's something else for us to start thinking about.

My favorite speaker was Sara Barris, adoptive parent and psychologist, who spoke on "Mindful Parenting Through the Developmental Stages".  She did an amazing job relating to her children's life stories and was so inspirational.  She recommended this book on mindful parenting by John Kabot-Zin which I'm going to try to read to the plane.

The day ended with an opportunity to sit with a panel of young adult adoptees. We both really enjoyed what the kids (ages 14-20) had to say about their experiences.  The moderator asked questions for about an hour, which I felt these teens did a great job of answering honestly and bravely.  Then he let the audience pose some questions.  However, I was disappointed that several adoptive parents asked what we considered to be pretty rude questions.  BTW - since many of you were interested you might want to know this:  I asked the kids how they felt about the new 23andme DNA testing as it might apply to adoptees.  They all said that they would be very interested in having the medical knowledge!  One girl did say she wouldn't want to know about the racial heritage info the test can sometimes provide.  One boy strongly disagreed with her for himself on that point though.  One girl also said she would not want her parents to have had the test done when she was little - she would want it to be her choice.  Other kids said it would have been good to have when they were kids.  So there was some interesting opinions but a general consensus from the kids that they wanted their medical knowledge.  The whole day was a fantastic learning opportunity and I was grateful that APC provided it.  

- Rosemary

Thailand Travels

I leave for Thailand in one week.  It's a very weird feeling.  Even though this is my job and I have been going back and forth to Thailand for years this will be the first time I have returned since we formally started the adoption process.  

I definitely feel like I will be seeing this country, that I love, in a very different light this time around.  I know that I will be more focused on learning about Thailand and not just enjoying Thailand.  I will be in Bangkok for 6 days and Chiang Rai for 5 days.

Top Five Things I Am Most Excited About:

1.) Being with the kids and staff at our home!  I miss everyone so much and can't wait to spend time with them and celebrate an early Christmas together.

2.) Thai Massage:  Best. Thing. Ever.

3.) Shopping at Jim Thompson.

4.) Visiting Doi Tung Royal Gardens - quite possibly the most beautiful place on earth.

5.) Street vendor food.

I will try to blog from Thailand but I'm not sure exactly how it will all work.  It will be a good test drive though for blogging whenever we actually get to meet our child!

 - Rosemary