Waiting for Hari

knee deep red jello

It is a very lovely spring day in Chicago and I appreciate the warm breeze and the sun. The glorious sun. I went to the Chinese Consulate to authenticate most of our documents. After this only our I-171 remains. We are progressing and some people who are following the process remark how quickly things are moving, but for me it feels like running through knee deep red jello.

I keep projecting our time line out -- if we do this by then, then this will happen then, and this will go there by then, and they will send this . . . . I don't want to wish this time or any time away, but the feeling of being on hold until Zhi Kuang comes home creeps in. And now I am noticing that some of my projections instead of being early are LATE. OMG, how can I be late! But because the home study did not get to the CIS when I thought that it did we have been pushed back a week. Not much time in a life time, but right now it is forever. I tell myself that it will happen when it happens, but no part of me believes that. I push, push, push. I think D has caught my pushing flu; he is working on his pre-adoption workbook from FTIA and is further along than I am. We need to hand finished notebooks in with our dossier, and he said he doesn't want to hold that up.

Holding on to joy -- the one more step taken -- is a challenge.

On Saturday, we had our first taste of being a mixed race family. D and I were out shopping for C's birthday gift. S was with us. S is my 'little sister;' she is African American and does not look at all like us. She is also really great and fits with us very well. We are comfortable doing things and going places. We picked out some jewelry for C -- her April birthstone on a chain -- and then went looking for the sweat shirt she asked for. In a store named Steve's and Barry's in which everything seems to be $6.95, we looked for a suitable and small IU shirt. It's not that big a store and the three of us were in different rows checking for shirts. I never considered it inappropriate for S, who is 9 almost 10, to be slightly away from us. A male strange came up to her and asked her if she was a foster child.

S told us this during lunch at a Mexican placed where S again didn't eat what she ordered. She has the most unadventurous palate imaginable. Anyway, she told us about her encounter and D and I was flabergasted. We asked what she did and how she felt. Asking S was easy because of our comfort level. She said she was scared. She said "no" to the guy and ran off to find us. We talked about what this guy did and why and what she could have done. The conversation because more and more animated as we came up with more and more outlandish responses to this stranger, and in the end, I think S felt fine about the experience.

But D and I realized how visible we are with S and how visible we will always be with Zhi Kuang. We felt invaded, and felt like we needed to be overprotective with S, let along little Zhi Kuang. It may really take awhile for us to understand and respond in an appropriate way to this.

I think of the parents of one of C's grammar school friends who adopted two boys who are biracial. By the time we met them and they were in school with C, I never they were anything other than a rather normal family. Now, of course I wonder how many scenes like ours they played out. The dad in that family, who went on all the kids' field trips and is just a really great guy, is so comfortable in his own skin that I am sure he knows how to deal with this. He may be a good person to talk to.

D and I are going this weekend out to Connecticut to visit C. For Easter, for Passover, for her 21st birthday! Oh my baby. It would be really nice to get the PA call today or early tomorrow or even on the 18th, C's birthday.

posted by Suz @ 4:09 PM