Ting started school

...and she hates it.  Well, I think she hates it.  I'm not really sure.  The good news is that she made friends immiately the first day of school.  Mollie from Vietnam; Vy from Vietnam and Jimmy from Hong Kong.  Then there's Yassir from Yemin and Mohammed from somewhere else that we don't know.  The kid gets in the car and I swear, correctly uses the term "sucks" as in "it sucks" and "that sucks" in the course of about five minutes.  Followed by me asking her if she was hungry?  Said maybe a little...okay then, "Chinese or American"

"Whatever." Complete with eye roll.

Memorial Day

Ting was over the moon that could download Chinese music into her iphone.  I spent the morning being seranaded by two cats, a singing Chinese kid and Otis snoring.  This iphone is going to be the end of me--I don't think she's spoken three words to me since we had it set up.  So we decided to go to the Symphony in the Park with the DSO for Memorial Day, with a preliminary stop at the grocery store for water, fruit, and other Memorial Day-ish treats.  I'm walking through the grocery store in a mad rush because of course otis thought this was a great idea but then did nothing to actually make this idea hapen other than tell me--so now I'm waddling around the store trying to remember watermelon-water-paper towels-ice...watermelon-water-paper towels-ice.  Ting?  TING?! Sure enough I lost her somewhere betweent the watermelon and the water, letting lose some Chinese rap in the frozen foods section.  I managed--barely--to contain myself before my Mother's voice cascaded across the store: "take those things out of your ears and pay attention!  We're already late!"

oh my.

We headed to Flag Pole Hill with our watemelon-water-paper towels-ice for the Memorial Day Concert.  What a beautiful day it was...looking at my immigrant daughter framed by the flag complete with dancing children, dogs on leashes, and people tossing around baseballs.  It looked like something out of modern-day Norman Rockwell painting.  It just got better and better as I watched my half-Japanese step-daughter and laughed at the baby kicking in my stomach, enjoying the melody of the Spanish being spoken behind us.

Then Otis turned to Ting, "Ting!  They have free popsicles over there!"

Ting, "Okay!  Hold on--let me get my passport!"

wha????

Ting's testing

Ting has to complete four levels of ESL before she can take college classes.  She took the placement test, scoring level 4 in reading in level 2 in grammar.  Of course, she spent an hour on reading and eight minutes on grammar!  There was only one other guy left and she didn't want to be the last one.  She scored a 73--the cut off for level three is 75.  So she's taking an essay test tomorrow--I'm pretty confident that they're going to put her in level 3; she'll be bored out of her mind if she's if she's in level 2.

She wants to take yoga and piano in the fall but isn't too interested in American History.  After all, as she pointed out: nothing's really happened yet.

tears in her rice

Nothing is familiar to this kid.  Roadsigns.  Milk.  Carpet.  Air conditioning.  Money.  TV. Schools. Phones. People.  I could literally go on and on...

We bought some rice on Saturday and she came home and made some rice with this Hunan sauce that she brought with her.  She sat on the couch and cried huge tears in her rice.

There is something nearly visceral about the affect of food.  I am so thankful I had my experiences in China and understand what that is like when you are so desperate for comfort and familiarity that food can bring you to tears.

I think we're gunna need more rice.

Demolition Derby or the grocery store

Took Ting to the grocery store.  So I'm waddling along, nearly 7 months pregnant, carrying my de-caf starbucks well ahead of Ting when suddenly I'm looking at the ceiling.  The child--whom, it now occurs to me-- has never driven a grocery cart, has cut me off at the ankles, effectively cutting me down like the Godfather set in the produce section.  So here I am, belly up, covered in coffee, half under a grocery cart wit a Chinese kid hopping up and down like a rabbit yelling, "ISOSRY ISOSRY!"  translation: I'm so sorry!  I'm so sorry!  Yup--we made quite an impression.

Until we got to the meat section.  "MOM!  What is THAT?!?!?!?!  Its DISGUSTING!" 

ground beef.

Why does it look like noodles?  Why do you have cow noodles?

<<sigh>>  Not cow noodles...just dead beef that kind of looks like, well, dead cow noodles.

So, I was wondering, after the grocery cart and the dead cow noodle situation, how I was going to explain the difference between oat and honey granola and cinammon apple granola.  No worries: she had a box of ice cream sundae pop tarts and a box of hot fudge pop tarts, "Mom!  I want this!  Which is more delicious?"

Yesterday we ventured back into the store.  She reached for the grocery cart.  "Don't be scared Mom, it's not my first time."

backing up a little bit

Ting arrived on Saturday May 7.  She got off the plane dehydrated, hungry, overwhelmed and disoriented.  We drove home with a trash bag in her lap in case she was sick.  She looked a little better after a shower and she desperatly needed to eat something.  My first decision as a mother was Chinese food--she needed something comforting that her body would accept and not make her sick.  We spent the latter part of the meal explaining fortune cookies to the Chinese kid.  Her sleep patterns were, of course, distrupted and for several days she was up all night or sleeping at night but awake by 3am. 

When I woke up Sunday morning I was amazed that she was still there.  I had a dream in which I was dreaming that Ting had arrived--a whole "dream that covered the last two years" kind of dream.  First thing Sunady she emtpied her purse and presented a hand full of coins: what is this?  Our first lesson was pennies, nickles, dimes and quarters.  I was quite pleased with myself to recognize that she would not know what our coins looked like.

My confidence quickly dissapated.  It would be two weeks before I realized she didn't know 911.

the water doesn't work

Otis showed her the dishwasher. 

What is it for?

To clean the dishes.

Oh, I understand.  The water in the sink does not work.

everything

She brought everything she owns.

Eight shirts.

Two pairs of jeans.

Three pairs of underware.

One pair of socks.

One pair of shoes and a toothbrush.

the hershey's kisses verses the goldfish

What is baseball?

oh man...baseball? 

Otis put on a game for reference, cleared off the coffee table whie the hershey's kisses took on the goldfish.  he goldfish were, unfortunately, the losers.

So we ate them.

how do you eat a donkey?

Ting: I think donkey not very delicious.

Otis: You ate donkey?!?!?!

Ting: yeah...

Otis: WHERE?

Ting: at the donkey restaurant

Otis: oh my God!  HOW do you EAT a donkey?!?!?!

Ting:...fry up with potato...

and that was Monday...

the basics

TingTing was my favorite stuednt in China.  My first day at school was her first day at school.  After a week or so we went to lunch--I had fried pork with potato and she told me about her life.  What I remember about this day is her telling me about missing her grandfather.  She and her grandfather shared a bed from the time she was very young.  One day about six weeks earlier she had awoken to find her grandfather dead.  Although many people from the village came it was too late, he had died in the night.  Her family blamed her for staying asleep and not knowing he was dead.  She hung her head and tears flowed into her lunch.  She had no western concept of a soul and for her death is final.  I was struck by an overwhelming passion to protect this child.  Over the time I was there we began to discuss the possibility of her coming to the U.S. to study.  It was a huge, unbelievable dream.  And we began the process of realising this dream.  And I made a promise.  And now she is here...sitting on the couch, surfing the net, eating popcorn and talking to the cat.