A letter to Rose-- January 24

Dear Rose,

It's Chinese New Year. Your first. My 38th, but also my first. Last year at this time, we'd just started thinking about adoption, and we switched countries on a weekly basis (China? No, Korea. No, Ethiopia. Just kidding-- back to China). Chinese New Year must have passed when we were in an Ethiopia phase, because we certainly didn't celebrate. This year, whenever I thought about Chinese New Year, I only thought about the delays-- we'd have to wait an extra week for our Article 5 pickup because everyone over in your part of the world would be celebrating instead of working.

And then your brothers and sisters realized that Chinese New Year was just around the corner and they decided we needed to have a party. They've been reading all about the holiday in their bedtime stories and wondered if we had enough people in the family to wear a lion dance costume. I needed something to take my mind off the fact that we could be in line for our travel approval already if not for all the holidays, so it didn't take much convincing. You also had a party at your orphanage. We saw pictures of all of the bigger kids with cakes and piles of candy. You and your besties must have been napping because you weren't in any of the pictures, but next year we're going to go crazy snapping pictures of you in a shiny red Chinese dress.

On Saturday, I showed Annie a picture of a dragon cake and she got all excited. One thing you need to know about the women in this family is that we're extremely determined and goal-oriented. Annie decided she was going to make that cake, and there was no stopping her. She baked both cakes, made the frosting, and decorated the whole thing. Now that she's got it down, I suppose she'll let you help.


And then, yesterday, the power went out and threatened to darken our party. It was dark all afternoon and when the sun went down, your mom and siblings sat in the cold, dark house and thought we might all have to sleep in the same bed. And then, just when our stomachs started growling for some food, the power came back on. Within minutes, Daddy came home bearing dumplings, wonton soup, beef with broccoli, sesame chicken and kung pao chicken. We ate with chopsticks and laughed over our terrible skills. For some reason I just can't figure it out. Everyone says to hold the bottom chopstick just like a pen, but I hold my pen weird, so that doesn't help. I'm going to need to bring those baby chopstick helpers with me to China. We figured out what Chinese year we're born in (tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, monkey, dog, rabbit) and got ready to cut into the cake when the doorbell rang, and it was my friend Emily, recently returned from Taiwan, bearing Chinese New Year decorations.

So here I sit, eating leftover dragon cake among the red and gold banners. I hope I hung them right side up. I realized how pitifully underprepared I am to be your teacher about Chinese culture, but I hope you don't mind too much. We'll do our best, and from now on, we'll always celebrate Chinese New Year.

Love,

Mommy