Adoption Journal (4)

By Ridley Pearson

Following a quick Chinese breakfast of noodles, tea and cookies, we elected not to go with our group to the department store (we all need to buy things that have either run out or weren't expected-it's FAR colder here in Kunming than we ever would have guessed) and so we walked, Marcelle carrying you, Storey, (I carried a backpack with supplies!) through the Kunming streets toward our final destination: of all things, a Wal-Mart. Yes, you read that right. A Wal-Mart. Talk about oxymorons! It doesn't fit in, which is great, because if it did we would have to leave here immediately. We walked along streets lined with tiny shops, women and men on low wooden stools, all of them gaggling over you, bundled at your mother's chest, a colorful handkerchief tied around your head to keep in the warmth (we were trying to buy you a knit cap, but they don't sell them anywhere, so a kerchief it is). We saw wooden elephants and tigers for sale, jade, old hand embroidered fabric and clothing. We stopped in a roadside store and bought you a yellow and white baby outfit. Being Chinese, it has the slit trousers (Chinese kids don't wear diapers, they squat and do their business through this slit). We bought little blue shoes and some angora wool socks. We paid $7 US dollars for everything.

We stopped at crowded crosswalks in this bustling city, Chinese crowding around us, smiling, loving your beautiful face and even, I think, the fact that you were in the arms of Anglos. We were stared at, grinned at, talked to, and grabbed hold of throughout the half hour walk. We missed our mark-your father was navigator, and doing a poor job-and so I asked directions repeatedly (pointing to Chinese characters on a map I was carrying) and alas, we worked past bike shops, camera shops, noodle shops, thousands upon thousands upon thousands of pedestrians and cars and bikes streaming past in a parade of color and humanity. We reached Wal-Mart - established that there were no knit hats, no sweaters, but plenty of baby formula (you're eating so well we were afraid we might run out by the end of the week!)  - and fed up with America's long arm, we headed back to the hotel by cab. We've just finished lunch, fed you a long, glorious series of bottles, and you've gone down for your nap (at 2PM, with only a brief 30 minute nap throughout the excitement of morning). We expect you will sleep a long time this afternoon - you have that look in your eyes.

Your mother is on the bed next to the crib reading; I am at the room's only desk writing you this, ready to work in a minute or two; from out the window comes the steady slow, slow drumming of some kind of machine that sounds like something huge is being pounded into the ground, the dull rhythm of it calming and soothing, as I imagine are the pats on your back. As we ate lunch today, you sat in my lap for forty-five minutes or more. I ate with chopsticks over your head, and spent much of the meal gently tapping your back as I helped you to sit in my lap. You never complained. Only sat there, cooing, smiling, chewing on your fingers, looking all around with that wide-eyed curiosity that is so intense within you. I feel the flower of your soul awakening with every minute, every image you absorb. You drink it all in, always generous enough to offer your mother or me an expression that pulls us to tears, for it is thanks. I cannot explain that look in any other way: it is gratitude. You look up or over at us, and you say thank you with those eyes; thank you for the walk in the street - I had never taken one; thank you for the taxi ride - I'd never been in one; thank you for the little hat made out of your handkerchief. You offer that look and you touch us so deeply inside. You make this all so worth it; you give so much back already. Thank you, dear girl, for the lessons you have taught us so quickly: you have made this such a special event in our lives, have rewarded us in so many glorious ways. We cannot imagine what the days ahead have in store, but we are 3/4 of a family now - already this is so profound inside us - and from here there are only more such experiences, more such moments. From here there is nothing but the future. And it suddenly looks brighter than ever before.

We are settling into a routine but are almost desperately wishing we were home - not out of any desire to leave this unusual and fascinating country, but to "get on with it" - to start our family life by joining Paige whom we miss SO MUCH and settling in. But it is not to be: the paperwork never ends.

(part 4 of 10, to be continued...)