Is It Really 8 Years?

The calendar tells me that it really is February 21, 2008, and I'm having one of those "where has the time gone" cliche moments of motherhood.

It was eight years ago this morning that we first met our little man Gabriel, who came to us scrunch-faced at exactly 10:00 AM, weighing in at 7 lbs, 7 oz.

I had a moment of angst the other day, when, having purchased him some new long sleeve shirts (size 10! Good grief his arms are getting long), David came into our room and said, "his new shirts don't fit on his hangers."

This seems like such a little thing, but, it means THAT HE NEEDS GROWN UP SIZE HANGERS. No more baby hangers. BIG REGULAR SIZE HANGERS for my baby's clothes.

Is it pathetic that this bothers me?

Last night I was telling Gabe the story of his birth (the highly sanitized version which is minus the blood and the screaming and the swearing like a sailor at the unknown doctor who was grabbed out of the hallway to come in and deliver him), and I had gotten to a key point in the story, the point at which my then-five-year-old-niece Jordan laid her head against my gi~normous belly and started whispering, her mouth flush against my sweater. And when I asked her what she was saying, she looked up at me and said, "Aunt Gretchen, I am telling that baby it is time to come out now!"

(After which, she also looked from me to her own mother, my sister, who was pregnant as well and said, "is my mom's belly going to get as huge as yours?" (No, I am not making that up, not even a little.) And considering the fact that my sister is an adorably petite 5-ft-tall tiny person, and I am a 5'7" Viking-lady, I assured her that it was impossibly unlikely that her mother's belly would get as huge as mine. And it didn't. Not once. Even though she's had FIVE babies.)

Anyway, I had gotten to the part where I went into labor only 4 hours after my niece Jordan had whispered into my stomach that it was time to come out, when Lana piped up,

"What about me, mommy? What about ME!!??!!"

Oh, the crushing and irrational guilt that consumed me! I have no story to tell her about the night she was born. I cannot even tell her if it was night or day or raining or windy or gloomy or sun-shiny. Nothing. Nada. I got zip. Zero. Zilch. No information.

I have told the story of Gabe so many times that it is like second nature to me - and the little details are important (David had a fever of 103, I went to the grocery in a snow storm, the bit about my niece, and how we were watching an episode of The X-Files when we left for the hospital and how it's the only episode of the X-Files we have never seen all the way through*), but, even though I have been telling all of YOU the story of Lana for the last two years, I have not been telling it to HER.

And, well, let's face it, the past year has been a lot about getting to know each other, and her learning English, we haven't exactly had a ton of time to build our shared history, the story of 'us'.

I have yet to tell Lana the story of how, on the day we learned she was our daughter, we were swimming in the backyard when the phone rang, and a woman named Abbie, on the other side of the country, told us "Congratulations!" I have not told her of how I took the tracings of her feet with me to Frankenmuth, Michigan at Thanksgiving in order to buy her the perfect pair of shoes, and how I got excited to buy lace trimmed anklet socks to go with them. I have not told her of how her grandmother and I packed and repacked her suitcase 3 times on the night before David and I left for Vietnam, or how the lady at the Northwest counter in Detroit wished us "good luck with your daughter" when we checked in for our flight. I have not told her that I was nervous to meet her, or what I was thinking when I first saw her.

I have a good story, a compelling story, (really, it is a good story) to tell Lana. I need to work out the details, to get them right, to perfect the story of 'us'.

It may not ultimately be the story she is craving, it may not be the story that she wants. The time may come when she decides she needs to know the rest of her story, and I worry that she may never be able to find it. I worry about this, that no matter how compelling and interesting and humourously told, the story I have to tell her...may not be the story that she NEEDS. But, I will do my best, to craft a story for her, as carefully as I have woven the story of her brother, and I will weave those stories together, and I will hope for the best...

Gretchen


*It was episode 7.12, an episode entitled "X-Cops", and Mulder and Scully were followed around by the film crew of a "Cops" style show - I honestly think that episode only aired that one time, because I have NEVER seen it advertised, anywhere, as a re-run.

 

Navel-gazing

My children have both hit me with some stunning questions this week.

Gabriel: Why doesn't the President like Barack Obama?
Me: Wow, Gabe, that's a big question...

(Anybody care to craft an answer to that in terms an 8-year-old can wrap his head around?)

Lana: Who made all this snow?
Me: God.
Lana: How did God make snow, mommy? How?
Me: (Absolute silence as I search my head for information on precipitation long buried since 8th grade Earth Science)
Me: (finally) Ask your father (I should get some mileage from being married to a guy who TEACHES earth science, right?)

Gabe: Why isn't the Feast of the Epiphany* (this is the day which Roman Catholics and Episcopalians (and a few other Protestant sects) recognize as the day the The Three Wise Men arrived to meet Jesus. Gabe is strangely intrigued with this concept - possibly because I told him that in France it involves CAKE) always on Wednesday?
Me: It's always on January 6, Gabe. Why would that always be a Wednesday?
Gabe: I think Wednesday would be the best day to meet Jesus, that's all.
Me: Hmmm....

* Gabe pronounces this more like "the feast of Fanny" which cracks me up a little bit

Lana: Mommy? You have belly-button?
Me: Yes, I have a belly-button?
Lana: I have a belly-button!
Me: Yes, you have a belly-button, too.
Lana: All people got belly-button?
Me: Yes, all people have belly-buttons.
Lana: Mommy? How come cat got no belly button?
Me: (long silence) Ask your father.

And now I'm left wondering...all mammals MUST have belly buttons, right? Or at least a spot where the umbilical cord was attached. So, dear readers...WHERE IS a cat's belly button???

 

 

 

A Cautionary Tale, or, Do Not Put All Your Eggs in One Basket

I have done a rather stupid thing.

And that stupid thing is this: I put almost every document relating to Lana's identity in ONE burgundy plastic expandable file folder.

The exception to this is her US passport, which, just by happenstance, is in an envelope with our plane tickets for our spring break trip. (And until the tickets came, her passport was in there, too.)

The burgundy plastic file folder is THE ONLY PLACE I had her social security number. (The file folder also contains 3 copies of her social security card, but, fat lot of good having a copy does if it is sitting with the original.)

This morning, for about 4 hours, I thought the burgundy file folder had been stolen from my car, and let me tell you, I honestly about lost my mind.

I KNOW better than this. I DO. I give people LEGAL ADVICE for a LIVING, you can guarantee that I would never advise any client to keep all important documents in one place with no copies anywhere else. SO WHY WOULD I DO THAT TO MYSELF??

So, for a few minutes I sat and thought about how I would reconstruct Lana's life - how I would put the pieces back together so that she would have an adoption decree, a birth certificate, a social security card, a certificate of citizenship.

I called the clerk at Probate court who handles all the adoptions, and she told me that they would be able to produce a certified copy of the final adoption decree (from my state, of course, but not from Vietnam), and my adoption agency said they could get me a copy (though not certified) of her Vietnamese adoption documents.

To reconstruct her life's documents would take time and money, and I am kind of desperate to get my taxes done. And to do that, I need her social security number.

When I called social security to see if they would tell me what the number is, they said, "we cannot give a parent the social security number for their child until they give it to us first."

Huh?? (She has got to be kidding me, right?)

So I said, "if I had the number, I wouldn't need YOU to give ME the number."

"Yes, I know, but, that's our policy ma'am."

I said, "What do I have to do to get the number?""

Fill out form F-5 requesting a new card." she says.

"Form F-5 requires that I KNOW the number. I don't know the number."

We went round and round for 5 minutes. She tells me I should have written the number down in more than one place. (Thank you very damn much. I needed that advice. NOT.)

She keeps saying that she cannot give me the number until I give her the number first.

I want to strangle her.

Finally, I say, "would you PLEASE tell me what I have to do, if I have NO DOCUMENTS relating to my daughter's identity, how do I get her social security number?" (This was a stretch of the truth since I did have her passport.)

She hems and haws and says that I have to go in person to the social security office and take any documents that I can find, including any school records and medical records, and if I have "enough proof" they will help me out, in person.

I was thinking that I was going to have to leave work tomorrow afternoon and take her passport and the replacement adoption decree and beg the people at social security office to tell me what her social security number is. (Which, frankly, as her parent, I think I should be entitled to be told if I can show that she is my child, but, I don't really have high hopes about what might have happened.)

The good news is that, when Husband got home, he found the burgundy file folder in our computer room. Evidently, I must have brought it in from my car myself.

(Smacks self in head).

So, I'm off to do my taxes. And put copies of all the important documents in about 3 separate places.

Perspective

Last week, there was a shortage of O+ blood in our area, and so the Red Cross called my husband and asked him to come in and give.

(He gives pretty regularly, but, in this case they called him on exactly the next day he would be eligible to donate - I believe it's 57 days or something like that.)

So, David made an appointment for the next day, and he said to Gabe, "after school tomorrow you're going to have to come with me while I give blood, and then we'll pick up Lana."

Gabe: Oh yeah! I love it! (Gabe does a small happy dance around the kitchen)

Lana: What? What give blood? What that mean?

Gabe: Daddy gives the nurse his blood and the nurse gives us OREOS! And NUTTER BUTTERS! As many as I want! I'll get a pack for you, too, Lana.

So, there you go, my son loves it when Husband gives blood for the COOKIES.

Evidently, in Gabe's head, we happily exchange bodily fluids for baked goods.

GW