Home Stretch November 12, 2009

Last night in Beijing. Hallelujah. We can almost taste home. In fact, we’re dying to taste home. I love Chinese food as much as the next person but I am SO over it right about now.

We’re starting to see the REAL Beckett now. And we’re afraid. Very afraid. They say that the girls who come from Hunan province are ‘spicy’. They are not kidding. Where did the mild mannered, placid little baby go? OK – in hindsight she was catatonic the first few days but still! She’s gone from meek to Machiavellian in a scant 2 weeks. Now, if things don’t go exactly her way, she yells. And when I say yells, I’m understating. It’s more of a ‘possessed by the devil’ roar. If green pea soup came spewing out of her mouth the picture would be complete. Russ had her all to himself yesterday afternoon and when I got back, she was…umm..yelling and I asked how the afternoon had gone. “She is the devil” was the reply.

It’s kinda funny actually. OK – its funny when you’re not the one getting yelled at. There are a guaranteed few things that will set her off:

1. Face wiping. Doesn’t matter that she is a continual drool fountain or that her nose is running and she’s mixing the snot with the spit and then wiping it all over her face – you cannot wipe it off. It’s officially gross. And if you should deign to try and remove said grossness, you get possessed screamer. Charming.
2. Putting on clothes. Not that she wants to be naked all the time. She just wants her clothes to magically appear on her body. None of the putting arms through armholes for her. Noooo. And god forbid her legs should have to go through pant legs. Shock horror – socks? Cause for hysteria. Exhausting!
3. Sitting by herself. Apparently, this equals abandonment. “You people shall sit with me at ALL times. There will be no doing of other THINGS. I – and only I shall be the centre of attention. If not, I shall scream. Be afraid.” Poor kid. She doesn’t yet realize that the amount of attention she’s currently getting is more she can expect once we get home. We have another black hole of attention waiting for us there.

Other than that, it’s all good. She’s developing amazingly well. Her muscles are way stronger than they were at the beginning. She can pull herself up to sitting now and can even roll over – a little. Of course she gets royally pissed off when she can’t roll back. She’s even developed a few games with us. Her favorite is to throw herself backwards (whether there’s a pillow or hand there or not) and then wait for us to shlep her up again. Laugh riot.  We’ve added the element of pushing on her forehead with a finger. She resists. We do it two or three times and the last time she stops resisting and lets herself fall back. This gets major chuckles. But she is not amused like most babies are. No making funny faces or tickling for her. All you get is the stony expression. “Really – is that all you people got?” She’s more for dark humor. The freefalling backwards stuff. We’re suspecting she has some daredevil in her. Mark my words, she’s probably going to be bungee jumping by 15. This is a far cry from her sister.

So although we’re facing the harsh reality that she will most definitely not be the sweet, compliant child that her sister was (and is), we’re still diggin’ on her big time.

And now we’re stuffing all of our remaining belongings into our bags. We realized last night that our ‘direct’ flight home isn’t direct after all (words will be had with Aeroplan) and we have to deplane in Vancouver and then get back on the same plane an hour and a half later. This should be an interesting flight as by that point, Beckett will have had the equivalent of a giant nap and will be raring to go. Wish us luck and we’ll speak to you all when we’re back.

And a big thanks to Jenn Tondino who has been my blog poster for the 2 weeks. Who knew WordPress was banned in China? So I’ve been emailing them to her and she’s been dutifully posting them at all hours. You rock Jenn – we all thank you!!

See you in Canada. Who hoo!!! (PS – China is now experiencing its largest snowfall in 54 years. Lucky us.)