China
Guatemala
Russia
Vietnam
Brazil
India
EthiopiaPublished in the Evansville Courier & Press Westside Insert on 8/24/07
Before I wake Emma up, I look down at my sleeping daughter in her crib. She looks peaceful. I hate to wake her. And I marvel that, like her big sister, Molly, she has kicked off all the covers. Isn’t she cold? Her feet are like ice. I wonder why she looks so much like my big sister, Shirley, when she sleeps. Her mouth is barely open, like a rosebud. Every once and a while, like Shirley, she lets out a delicate little snore.
No less than six months ago, Emma was half a world away from me. She, along with seven other little orphan girls her age, were being cared for by two kind ladies in China. She had a regimented schedule of naps and a rather stark diet of rice congee and formula. During regular play times, according to some extensive paper work we received from the orphanage, she liked to scoot around in her walker and had the propensity for stealing cookies from the other little girls. The initial photo we received showed a rather saucy-looking little girl gazing straight at the camera. Her arms were folded across her chest and resting on her walker like she ran the orphanage.
On March 5, 2007, in a noisy governmental building, filled with other hopeful parents and crying babies, her life changed profoundly. Little Yang Quiong Jin became Emma-Kate Quiong-Jin (Yes, I know, a mouthful.) She came to me with few tears but rather unwillingly. She wore a dreadful lime green and lemon yellow knit two-piece outfit. She wore blue and white striped tights and brown corduroy shoes. She looked like one of the Oompa Loompas from the Gene Wilder movie "Willie Wonka." In each of her hands, she clutched a treat-an individually wrapped corn curl. After staring at me with dismay for a few minutes, she fell asleep. We had a week, before the dreaded 18-hour flight home, to convince her that she belonged to us. In those precious early days, when it was just David and I, we worked hard to make Emma smile and love us. Occasionally she would grace us with a look of queenly amusement. Mostly, she would wake every morning with a look of resignation. "Ohhh, it’s you two again,' she seemed to think. We wouldn’t see her great capacity for love until we got home.
The minute she laid eyes on her blonde-haired, blue-eyed ten-year-old sister, she fell completely in love. She tolerated David and me in China. But Molly was her first great love. I tell Molly how Emma loved her first. And through her love for Molly, she learned to love David and me. Actually, it was more like Molly first, her new pink Chuck Taylor high tops, the tiny pink Crocs (which she loved so much, she even slept in them) and then the parental unit.
Molly relished her role as a big sister and those first few nights when Emma had her days and nights mixed up, Molly was a godsend. I spent the wee hours of the morning driving around Evansville, the largest diet soda money could buy in my cup holder. At 39, I was a bleary-eyed chauffer to a happy 17 month-old girl who had never been in a car, much less seen the sights of a city at 3 a.m. During the day, Molly was Emma’s world as David and I stumbled around like a couple of sleep deprived zombies.
We finally had to act like responsible adults and allow Molly to go back to having a childhood. We had to force Emma to accept the fact that we were her parents, not the blonde-haired love of her life. It was rough at first. Emma wanted nothing to do with us. Molly had become her parent of choice. We felt awful shutting Molly out of Emma’s life so we could step in. There were a lot of hurt feelings on all parts.
Today, Emma is a delightful little girl. The young orphan who was placed into my arms is a ghost from the past. She is happy nearly all the time-except when in the bath. That is a non-stop treat of wailing and crying. So the baths are quick and may not be particularly effective. But by the time we whip the lotion out, she is our happy girl again.
Emma has a wonderful sense of humor and loves to tease our ever-patient and tolerant beagle, Abby. Poor Abby has accepted that now she is at the very bottom of the food chain in the family. Molly is the best teacher and Emma is an apt pupil. What ever Molly does or says, Emma does and says. One of Molly and Emma’s latest tricks is to open their mouths and show you what they are eating. Nice.
Being a parent again at my age has been an adventure. It has even been a delicate balancing act between my first daughter and my younger daughter. It is amazing how the girls can fight over seemingly inconsequential things like gummy snacks. Some days I drive the girls around town with one crying and the other pouting. Other days, it is amazing that I actually get anywhere in one piece because I have the rear-view mirror positioned to where I can watch them. They are beautiful to watch. Then Molly will notice and, in her most scornful pre-teen voice she can summon, will tell me to stop looking at them and watch the road.
And what a road it has been, a long and winding (sometimes bumpy) road to Emma. We had a few detours along the way. There was the detour in infertility, the rest stop in paper work, a slow-moving construction zone as we waited for the referral. The long trip was definately worth the ride.
Emma wakes up happy most of the time. She blinks her little shiny black eyes at me and her smile stretches across her face. She has amazingly white teeth. Then she reaches for me and says those words that every parent loves to hear first thing in the morning: "Poo poo diapy?"
