What They Gave Me December 19, 2009

It’s been 47 days since they gave me a baby. They GAVE me my baby. I look at her, her little face with the big searching eyes and the scrunched up nose when she smiles…and I remember when she didn’t smile. For her, it may seem an eternity ago, but for me, it feels like yesterday.

Every morning, I hear her squeak her call and I roll out of bed and go to her. She seems less surprised to see me every day. And every day I reach my arms out to her and wait for her to reach back. This week, she reached back. I lift her out and she wraps her little arms around my neck and holds me close. She breathes me in, literally – snuffling like a pig after truffles. And as she smells me, I smell her, letting myself be filled up with the baby morning smell. We rub noses.  She mimics my facial gestures – her features alive with expression. 47 days ago she was almost vacant. All she could do was look. But now, we share this kooky grin thing. I smile a super wide smile, my eyes slits and my lips turn up. She returns it with interest. Her ever increasing teeth reveal past her beautiful lips and her arms bobble up and down with joy. Besides the expression alone making me laugh, I am so aware of that birth of joy. I am more aware of when it was absent.

I longed for this baby. I dreamed of her. And out there in the world, forces conspired. When would our paperwork be finalized? When would the Chinese bureaucratic wheels turn? How would the Chinese Center for Adoption Affairs person’s hand reach from one file to another? How would she reach me?

But she did. And again the magic of adoption overwhelms me. I watch Lotus sleep – her 8-year old body like a gangly puppy now. Long gone are her baby days. Now she’s a teen waiting to happen and she reminds me of it at every turn. She is so like me and so not. We share ideals and some physiology (the short gene) and tons of attitude, but not a single strand of DNA.  They gave me this baby too. My first girl, my life.

You know this is magic. Anyone who has ever doubted the existence of magic needs to stand a moment in my heart – to witness what 47 days of loving someone profoundly can do. Me her and her me. This osmosis of love turns solid. It bonds us. Beckett and I. Now, today, she cries if I leave the room. She reaches those arms out for me before I reach for her. She sleeps in my arms, the shrieks no longer, the trust apparent in her heavily and peacefully lidded eyes. She holds my finger. She breathes me in. I breathe her in.

They gave me this baby. But she has always been mine. This girl was born for me. And I was born for her. Still I thank them, whomever they may be, for allowing me to find her, just now, just like this. Because what they gave me is the most beautiful thing in the world.

PS – A lot of you have asked how you can subscribe to the blog. It took me a while but I finally got it together and added a ‘subscribe’ link. Look top right and you can click on the link, add your email address and you’ll be updated whenever I post something new. 

The “B” is for “badass”

Smiling as only Beckett can do

Could I be happier? I don’t think so.

Yup – there’s that face!

Christmakaka? December 14, 2009

Ohhh China. I long for your lazy days, filled with nothing but hives and barfing, the smell of smoky hotel rooms and smog thick enough to wear as a coat. I dream of your buffets stocked with snake and turtle, your runny eggs and your rock hard buns. I long for the nothingness of it all.

Because now I’m home. And its the holidays.

Here’s the low down. I’m Jewish. Russ is not. (To this day, we don’t know what he is. When we ask him, he just replies “smart”). My girls are being raised Jewish (and when I say Jewish, it means they are being raised to know that Montreal bagels are superior to big doughy ones, that Passover has the best food and that its cool to say the four questions for a few years and then it sucks, that the raison d’etre for every holiday is ‘they persecuted us, we survived, let’s eat”, and that Chanukah is a legitimate present hoarding holiday). But – because their father is ‘not’, we celebrate both Chanukah and Christmas. I have to admit that Russ’s non-Jewishness is only half the excuse. I fell in love with celebrating Christmas (or Xmas as its informally known in the UK) when I lived in London. And let me tell you, the Brits know how to throw down an Xmas. It’s all ‘ye olde this and ye olde that’. Very Dickensian and charming. What’s not to love.? Besides, I recall feeling sorely ripped off as a kid when our parents shlepped us out to the country to live in a community where our Jewishness was such a novelty, my sister and I were known as “la Grande Juif” and ‘le Petite Juif”. For you anglophiles, that’s “The Big Jew” and “the Little Jew”. So not only did we have to suffer humiliation, they wouldn’t even get us a fucking tree. I’m in therapy still.

Which brings me to the challenge of the season – and the particular hoo-ha of this year. Chanukah usually starts a week or two before Christmas. Which means that I’m in planning mode oh, by November 1st. Oh yeah, this year I was in China on Nov. 1st. So you can imagine my scrambling come the end of November when I finally emerged from my new baby, jet lagged stupor. OK – Chanukah. I’m on it. Buy presents. Get a new Menorah (the old one was, well old. How a religious icon can become dated I don’t know, but it did). Candles to go in Menorah – check. Dig out “How to Be a Jewish Parent” book. (Yes I have one. You can mock all you want but you try remembering all the stupid prayers. All I can conjure up is Baruch atah adonai…and the rest is a blur). Find the fabulous quilted menorah that my mother-in-law quilted for us with little  velcro-backed lights that you attach to the candles – so smart!!! Buy presents, find Chanukah wrapping paper (a challenge in my white bread hood) and then pick a date that works for everyone. This is always an interesting challenge and usually goes something like this:

My email: Hi Family – how’s Dec 12th for Chanukah?

Replies flood in: ‘Erica’ – no can do, I’m flying to Vancouver to shoot a tv show, then I’m speaking at a conference and then my kids have three birthday parties that day. ‘Mommy’ – Ohhh I so wish I could but I’m going to be in Yemen and Jordan. I’m writing a story for my website and then working with the Canadian government on a program for safe traveling for women in the Middle East. How about the week after?” ‘Cousin Robin’: The kids both have Bar Mitzvahs that weekend, Steven is going to a football game and I’m skiing. How about 2 weeks later’.

I shit you not. This is my family.

After 85 emails back and forth, we finally settle on a 3 hour period on an agreed date. Meanwhile, my in-laws finally agree to come and visit for the holidays this year. En masse. Staying with us. Yay. Ok – that’s coming across as cynical. I love my in-laws and my sister and brother-in-law. They are absolutely delightful and we’re thrilled they’re coming. But you know how it is. More people, more cooking, more shlepping, less bathroom. The extra-fun part is we’re doing a whole family Christmas (or Frame-mas are we’ve started calling it so not as to confuse it with the 3 other celebrations on schedule) but we’re doing it a week BEFORE Christmas because they’ll be returning home for the actual holidays. (One of many challenges around that is that my oven is barely big enough to hold a roasted chicken – forget an 18 lb turkey. And if anyone has recipes for all the Christmas fixins done solely on the stove top, please do pass them on.)

Are you still with me? So now we have Chanukah, Frame-mas and then real Christmas which we’ll start at home and then have Christmas dinner with our friends Joe and Darsh as we always do.

So now we’re looking at 2 turkeys, 47 presents, 4 present openings, 18 candles, a Christmas tree, 12 holiday outfits, 10 potatoes worth of latkes and a partridge in a pear tree. Oh, and Lotus wants me to make potato latkes for her Brownie troupe’s Christmas party. (That should go down so well. I can see it now – the pile of oily, smelly, little crusty brown discs nestled among the Christmas cookies and marshmallow treats. This could make her a social pariah. Brownies is not a ‘Jewish’ thing…)

So this is Bex’s first holiday season. I’m sure she’s going to end up with a very warped sense of reality. Her first take on life with us was that we lived in a giant building with elevators, chandeliers and endless buffets. Now she thinks that she’s landed in the middle of party central, where friends come and go as if on a conveyor belt, we’re always drinking wine and eating snacks (ok – that part at least is true), where everyone brings a present or two and there is party after party where everyone vies to hold her for a second or two.

Man – is she ever going to be disillusioned come January. I, on the other hand, am going to lie down…til February.

Happy holidays everyone. May you party your Christmas socks off and dance your dreidels away. And may you and yours be healthy and happy.

They persecuted us, we survived, let's eat!

Shopping is the New Working December 3, 2009

Reading back over the last few posts, I fear this is all starting to take itself very seriously. God forbid. Please, gentle reader, be sure to remind me when I start disappearing up my own backside. There must always be a healthy dose of dark sarcasm and self deprecating humor in all of this. After all, this is my signature – no?

Before I get into this post’s topic (half the fun of this is coming up with a title btw. It’s the equivalent of writing headlines!), I wanted to send a shout out to all my peeps. (This use of slang is my pathetic attempt at clinging to my hipness – which we’ll dive more deeply into in a mo). I’ve been so absorbed in all things Beckett of late that I’ve been ignoring many of your comments and emails. So to you, friends of Ehm, the steadfast and true, the always there, the ever forgiving (you know who you are if you’ve not yet gotten a response to your messages yet), I say thanks for still hanging around. I blame it all on my second child who, as soon as she sees me entering into any form of external communication, throws a total wobbly fit OR will risk falling out of a chair to reach and fuck with said communication device. As we speak, I’m hiding in a closet while typing. My life has become – well, unexpectedly interesting.

On to the subject matter at hand. Since hanging out at home with the Bexter is a recipe for no sleep cranky disaster, every day becomes an exercise in banal planning. One day its a 1.5 hour walk to a friend’s house just so she’ll nap en route and home, another its going in to the office to make a few calls just so Andrea can distract her (read: me) for a while. But usually, it’s shopping. Shopping is my new job.

Sobey’s, Toys R Us, Indigo, WalMart, Zellers, Baby Gap, Gymboree, Children’s Place – you name it, I’ve shopped there. And I’m not talking Christmas prezzies either. I’m talking time killing, indulgent, gift card redeeming, fashion frenzying shopping. I’m talking hours of strolling, perusing, considering, buying, returning. My wallet is stuffed with coupons, offers, 2 for 1 tickets and receipts. I know which days are 30% off where and when, and where you can get half off if you buy what (but only on full price items).  The shop assistants are starting to know me by name and I now officially know which aisles I can navigate my gigantor stroller through and which are no go zones. I am efficient, brisk, focused,  patience and conniving all when I need to be. “Oh – I thought this coupon let me get my 20% off? Not on this item today? Well what if I buy it full price today and return it tomorrow and then rebuy ith with the coupon? Yes. Excellent” (Meanwhile, my brain gets all excited, knowing I officially have a reason to shop again the next day AND get my 20% off). I am on a mission to…well…nothing. 

Beckett gurgles happily in her stroller, napping on occasion and eating Mum Mum crackers when peckish. We frequent the food court at lunch time – mine’s an apple and beet salad from Cultures (YUM) and her’s is a delightful prune and apple concoction that keeps things..umm…moving.

Yesterday was particularly fabulous. I picked up my trusty Andrea (she has become a noun in my life) and off we went to Sherway. OK – so we did some of the usual spots; buying, returning, combining and indulging. (Thanks BTW to the folks at Russ’s office. We spent the Gap gift card on a fabulous pink and orange number for Beckett – including LEG WARMERS. Oh yeah. She’s stylin’) But then we hit the grown up girl stores. Beckett decided this was her time to nap and Andre and I were able to raid the shelves and cram everything into changing rooms as she snoozed obliviously. And something came over me…

I was looking at the racks of clothes. My eyes flitted from thing to thing. My conscious brain scanned for items that would fit a very clear set of criteria. 1. HIDES BARF. 2. CAMOUFLAGES SNOT SMEARS. 3. HAS A NECKLINE THAT CAN BOUNCE BACK FROM BEING PULLED ON BY TINY HANDS. 4. HAS NOTHING THAT CAN BE REMOVED AND CHOKED ON. 5. MACHINE WASHABLE – A LOT. 6. IS RELATIVELY CHEAP.  ”Uh huh” I said to my brain. “Gotcha. Check”.  And then I saw them. Tops bedecked with sequins. Sparkly and alluring. T-shirt covered in studs. Soft loose knit sweaters, ripe for being pulled apart by probing hands. A sparkly vest. Sooo pretty. with large, chokeworthy buttons that looked virtually impossible to clean. I couldn’t help myself. I reached my hands out (noticing how badly i needed a manicure) and stroked the shimmering material. I couldn’t possibly…

Oh yes I could. The 28 year old, single and childless chick in me (yes – she’s still in there only now covered with a lovely protective ‘coating’) went for it. Sparkles, studs and knits. Dry clean only, delicates and rayon. Shrinkable, bleedable, shredable. I wanted it all. And damn, it looked good. So what if I have no idea when or where I’ll wear it. Who cares that I can’t make it to a single holiday party this year. Who gives a shit if I’m not going into the office for god knows how long. If i have to strut around the house in my sparkle wear and get barfed on – so be it. I did a damn fine job of buying the stuff and I’m going to wear it.

So back to all of you friends of Ehm. My work is done. Now your job is to invite me to come somewhere that required sparkles, studs or fine wool.  (And if i suggest we go shopping – remind me I’m CUT OFF!)

PS – If anyone wants to know where to get what, when and where – just ask….