They say it's your birthday...

Dear Eli,

You turned one yesterday. It was probably just like any other day to you, right? I keep telling myself that parties for one-year-olds are really for the parents, and that babies have no concept of what it means to turn one. When I say that, it makes it a little bit easier.

When we were waiting for Rose, her first birthday was a psychological milestone for me. While we were waiting for our official approval, I just kept telling myself, "it needs to come so we can get her home for her first birthday." And then when it looked like it might take longer, I revised that strategy, "Please, just let us have her with us by the time she turns one." As it turns out, she was home for two weeks before her birthday.

But we first learned about Rose when she was five months old, and our paperwork was already in China, so the "approximately six month wait" clock started ticking right away. You were ten months when asked the Chinese government if we could become your parents, and our paperwork still has two or three weeks before it will be done. And then that six month clock starts ticking. There was no way we would have your first birthday-- we knew that when we started all of this.

Since first birthdays are for the parents and siblings, we decided we'd still party in your honor. You weren't here to blow out your candles, so your five older brothers and sisters each blew out a candle for you. You weren't here to open your presents, so everyone else in the family opened a present as your proxy.

You got some clothes and some baby toys, and if we can keep Rose out of the toys, they'll be here when you get home.

You weren't here with us, sweet Eli, but you've definitely worked your way into our hearts. Sometimes I think that the pain of waiting for you is part of what binds us to you.

And when you turn two, we'll celebrate. In a big way.

Love,

Mommy

Book Review: Incognito by David Eagleman

Title: Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain
Author: David Eagleman
Enjoyment Rating: ***
Source: Audible for iTunes
Books I've read this year 107

I've read a lot of books about neuroscience over the last five years. For some reason, they always find a way into my shopping cart at Audible when books go into the $4.95 discount bin. And I feel like I could write one now-- marsmallow test, check. Synesthesia? Check. Phineas Gage? Check.Runaway train experiment? Check. Parkinson's patients with gambling addictions? Check. While Incognito was an enjoyable listen and I think it might be a good place for someone to start reading who hasn't read a lot of the popular neuroscience in the last half decade, it ultimately felt like a rehashing of lots of things I already knew.

Book Review: The Dog Stars by Peter Heller

Title: The Dog Stars
Author: Peter Heller
Enjoyment Rating: *****
Source: Library Copy
Books I've read this year: 106

We decided to adopt a baby about two weeks before undertaking an enormous landscaping project. Consequently, I've spent the fall economizing almost all other aspects of my life.  I told Ed that I'd do my part by giving up my habit of buying books with reckless abandon, and started reserving them at the library instead. Most of the time, it's a great solution (except I miss reading myself to sleep by the light of my iPad), but I will admit that I get a rush of panic when the library alerts me that I have (another) hold waiting for me. You may have noticed that my reading pace has slowed considerably this summer and especially this fall since I started teaching. And when four reserves, four books I know I won't be able to renew, all come in at the same time, it makes me read really fast.

Unfortunately, The Dog Stars is the kind of book that isn't mean to be read fast. Oh yes, it's possible to quickly plow through this tale of a man, Hig, who survived an apocalyptic flu and now lives in what used to be Denver with only his dog and a gun-crazed neighbor for company. But that isn't how it's meant to be read. Heller's MFA is in both fiction and poetry, and it shows. His language is poetic, and we really get into Hig's head and feel what he feels as he flies his plane above the ravaged American west, both looking for survivors and afraid of what he'll find.

I know, the summary of this book may make it seem like something you don't want to read, but there are no zombies in The Dog Stars, unless you count the survivors, afraid of embracing life. I'm glad I gave up my much-needed nap last Monday to finish it in a quiet house. I'm still thinking about it.

Book Review: Stories I Only Tell My Friends by Rob Lowe

Title: Stories I Only Tell My Friends
Author: Rob Lowe
Enjoyment Rating: ****
Source: Audible for iTunes
Books I've read this year: 105

We've been overhauling our yard. That is to say, we have been staying inside and watching while other people have come in to overhaul our yard. It's been a big project-- we bought the house to the east of ours last winter, but there were renters living in it, so we had to wait to do anything to it until they left at the beginning of September. Then we had to spend a certain amount of money on the house so we didn't lose our rent money to taxes. So we decided to landscape the back yard, which involved pulling out more than a dozen trees and more than a hundred big boulders, tearing out a wall and a fireplace, building a new wall, moving a swing set and the chicken coop, installing several truckloads of sod, and spending way, way, way too much money on the pool. We haven't even started the shed/fence/garage part of the project, but suffice it to say that we are in no danger of losing the rent to taxes any more.

Okay, that whole paragraph had absolutely nothing to do with Rob Lowe. Here it comes. Last week I looked out at the yard and my heart sunk. Yeah, we had new sod and our swing set looked great in its new box, but everything was so junky. There were tons of soda cans lying all over the place, and every time the kids came into the house they tracked mud everywhere. It was time for an intervention. So Rob Lowe and I went outside. I filled our whole trash can with trash. I swept and swept until the concrete looked great. I even swept down the steps of the house next door so I could keep listening.

I've always thought Rob Lowe was a handsome guy, and even a smart guy. I was a huge fan of The West Wing back in the day, so he will always be Sam Shepherd to me. But he's also a great writer, and a man who has had ten lifetimes of experiences. As an avid People reader, I will admit to enjoying hearing all of the behind the scenes stories that Lowe lived, but I also feel like the book presents him as a grounded, deliberate person, a person who faced his demons early on in life and learned to rise above them. It's both a good read and a really fun read. 

Book Review: The Roots of the Olive Tree by Courtney Miller Santo

Title: The Roots of the Olive Tree: A Novel
Author: Courtney Miller Santo
Enjoyment Rating: ****
Source: Personal Copy
Books I've read this year: 104

I've been working on the periphery of the Mormon Lit world for long enough that when I heard that Courtney Miller Santo was having a novel published by William Morrow, my arms got all flappy and I did a little happy dance. Yay! Courtney Miller Santo! She who has been published in the journal where I work as an editor! Whose name is on the contributor page of the current issue of Irreantum right near mine! Maybe we are getting our Mormon moment in writing too! So yeah, I was a little excited.

And being excited often sets a reader up for disappointment, but Santo (Miller Santo? Courtney? I feel like she's a friend-- I want to call her Courtney) doesn't disappoint in her tale of the five generations of the Keller family. My great-grandma died when she was 95, just a month before my son was born. If she had held out one more month, I was going to make a pilgrimage to Pittsburgh to get the picture of all five generations. But the Keller women have serious longevity. When the book opens Anna, the oldest Keller, is 112 and she looks like she's about 70. She bends and stoops and walks and picks olives in her grove to make a special lunch for the doctor who is coming to talk with members of her family about their secrets to a long life.

The story spans eleven years and we hear the voices of every generation, down to the sixth. Santo's prose is beautiful and evocative-- I felt like I could have imagined Anna among the olive groves even if I hadn't been to Northern California a few months ago. The stories tie together well, but not too neatly. I always battle within myself because as a reader I want to know exactly what happened and why, and Santo doesn't always tell us that, but I feel that she's holding back on some details so the readers have a chance to pick at them and either work them out for ourselves or become comfortable with not knowing. I also felt like the book was incredibly readable-- I read it in just a few days of intense bursts.

So close, and yet so far

This was the fifth and final post from the secret Eli blog. It was written on September 13th.

Dear Eli,

Before we went to China, I knew that our visit to the orphanage would be an unforgettable experience for us. I wasn't sure if it would be fantastic, or scary, or a little bit of both. I wasn't sure if Annie or Daddy would get freaked out by it, or if Rose would be traumatized by us taking her back there. But I knew that no matter what happened that day, it would remain imprinted on our minds for a long time.

There were some things about the visit that were pretty great (meeting the women who took care of Rose, seeing the other babies who were waiting for families, watching the orphanage director interact with the kids) and other things that were harder (going to Rose's finding place, seeing some of the kids with more serious special needs, walking through enormous puddles of freezing cold water to see the new orphanage site). Of everything we did, my favorite part was walking from room to room and taking pictures of the babies. This was probably because my very favorite thing while we were waiting for Rose (and now what I love about waiting for you) is getting pictures from families when they visit Xuzhou. Last week we got TWO DOZEN pictures of you, and you look fantastic. You're putting good weight on your arms, making eye contact with your ayis, and smiling. You have a little girlfriend too- you're peeking into her crib or she's peeking into yours in almost all of the photos. It melts my heart. And that's the hard part too, you're so adorable, and you're so far away.

But you weren't always far from us.It gives me chills every time I think about it, but you were in the orphanage when we went to visit. We didn't see you, because we were focused only on the babies on our list, but you were there. We even went into the room where I expect you were at the time. You were five months, and when Rose was five months, she was in the room with the green duvets. We went into that room to take a picture of a little boy, but I only remember looking at the list, following Ms. Tang to his crib, and taking his photo before we walked right out the door again. But you were there. If I had only known....

Perhaps it's better that I didn't know. I can't write about it without crying, so I can only imagine that if someone had said to me, "Shelah, this one right here, this cute little guy, he's going to be yours too, but you have to wait at least a year to get him," that would have been unendurable. This whole process is more of an endurance test than any marathon or ultramarathon I've ever run, but it will be worth it. You, Eli, are worth it.

In other news, I talked with Isaac's orthopedist, and she said she'd be happy to be the doctor to work with your lower extremities. She also recommended a partner who can work with your hands. They'll work together to make sure you have the best motor function you can. I'm gaining confidence that you're going to be just fine. I've joined a few groups and started following a few facebook pages related to limb differences, and I have a feeling that there will be no stopping you once we get you home.

It's true, it won't be easy to get you here. Rose was almost exactly the same age you are now when we adopted her, and we have at least six more months to wait for you, probably seven or eight if I'm being realistic. But you will get here eventually. We can't wait to have you as part of our family.

Love,

Mommy

All the things I said I wouldn't do

The fourth Eli post-- originally written September 4th. 

Dear Eli,

I said we would wait to set up your bedroom. You won't be here for months and months, and I'm still struggling with how much of my heart I can afford to send to China right now. But you have big brothers and big sisters. And I'll tell you this right now-- they are loud. Your brothers kick and wrestle and yell and play video games at high volumes. And your sisters laugh and shriek and call for me when they know I'm two floors away. And there are two empty bedrooms in the basement, or at least empty 95% of the time, when we don't have visitors.

So, the short story is, you're getting a bedroom. A bedroom you won't be here to sleep in for a good long while. We're moving up the recliner that I bought and loaded into the minivan when I was four months pregnant with Maren, and then I sat in it each night and did my best to think about her and relax. We're taking out the beds and shuttling them downstairs, where your brothers can kick and jump and wrestle to their hearts' content. And we're moving in the crib from the girls' room, since Rosie doesn't sleep in it anyway.

One of those fortuitous things that happens sometimes happened to me last week. All of your older brothers and sisters have these big, soft blankets that they got when they were babies. I got the first two as gifts, and then ordered the others from the company, Boogie Baby. They're expensive, but in our family, they're also a tradition. Last week, I popped onto their website to check out the current designs. I clicked on the "overstocks" link, where they put all of the blankets that were made in error or returned. There were a dozen or so, and one of them said "Elias." Not only that, but it was predominantly in the same browns and caramels that Mimi used when she painted the walls of your safari bedroom. So I ordered it, and now that it's here, it needs to be displayed. I need to be able to snuggle up with it and think of you all the way over there in China, even though it makes me mist up a little bit every time I think about it.

About seven years ago, I went through a phase where I wrote poems. They weren't particularly good poems, but they made me feel good. At the time, your big brother Isaac was about one, and I was thinking about trying to have another baby. I wrote this poem:

The Final Plunge

I’m standing at the edge of the lake
Steeling myself, preparing to jump in.
Peering into the murky coldness of the water,
And readjusting my eyes until I see myself, reflected.
I’ve been here three times before:

Once as a couple, excited and nervous,
I grabbed Eddie’s hand and plunged in.

The second time we brought our baby,
And I jumped quickly
Surprised by the chest-numbing shock as I hit the water.

The third time Eddie and the kids
Splashed on the shore
And I dangled my legs in the water
Letting them warm up
Until I knew I was ready.

I’ve looked forward to coming back here
For the last year.
Planned, begged, mapped out my route.

But finding my feet on the greening planks
Of the rickety dock
Is a bit of a surprise.

Because I know that this is my last visit to this beach,
My very own, favorite spot.

And I haven’t quite wrapped my head around the idea
That I’ll only come back
In memories,
Pictures,
And glimpses of others packing their bags,
Loading their cars,
And heading for the lake.

So even though I’m ready
For the ear-popping, icy darkness,
As I dive to the bottom of the lake,
I wonder if I should go back to the cabin
Grab a book
And put off the deliciousness
Of the last dive
For one more day.
---

Last year, I found myself on the dock again, with Rose on the way. And I was elated-- I felt like I'd been given another chance at doing my very favorite thing in the entire world. I jumped into that water with both feet, and found myself with water up my nose and in my ears. I finally got to the short, coughing and spluttering, but yes, oh yes, it was worth it. The sweetest dive I never thought I'd have.

But this time, I still remember how cold and dark and scary that water was before I came back up to the surface. I still remember all of those days of waiting for Rose, all of the time when I thought I was going insane, willing the phone to ring. I know that as soon as I fully let you in, when I put on my swimsuit and stand on the dock, I'm going to have to plunge in. And as much as I love the dive, love coming back up to the surface, this time I know enough about it that the whole idea scares me.

But when Rose wakes up from her nap, we're going to try to fit in a grocery store run, and if we do, I have cork tiles for the kitchen wall on my list. We're going to start the Eli shrine.

I sound reluctant, I know I do. But I also have six or nine months to adjust to the idea. Actually, I think the six or nine months is the hard part-- you, my sweet little Eli, you are the reward that is worth waiting for. No matter how hard the dive or cold the water.

Love,

Mommy

Book Review: Broken Harbor by Tana French

Title: Broken Harbor
Author: Tana French
Enjoyment Rating: *****
Source: Audible for iTunes
Books I've read this year: 103

A few weeks ago, Ed and I decided to move my boys down to a bedroom in the basement. It was a big job that required multiple IKEA visits, innumerable trips up and down the stairs, and several recharges of our drill. My friend Blue was kind enough to give up all of one day to help me put together beds, which was a lifesaver. But even when she wasn't there, I enjoyed my time in the basement, screwing furniture together, because I had Broken Harbor to keep me company. I believe that Broken Harbor is French's fourth novel, and I keep waiting for her to write one that doesn't resonate with me. It hasn't happened so far.

In Broken Harbor, Scorcher Kennedy is a detective who has always followed the rules. His past has taught him that messing up, stepping into the gray area, just isn't an option for him. When he and his new partner are called to a murder case in Brian's Town, an hour from Dublin, Kennedy immediately remembers the place as Broken Harbor, where he summered with his family as a child. Now it's a rundown housing development, a casualty of the downtrodden economy. And it's just about the grayest place in all of Ireland.

Kennedy finds a husband and two children dead, and a wife at death's door. And he's forced to confront his own demons as he tries to unravel what really happened in this house where life, to all outside observers, appeared to be picture perfect.

How it's different this time

The third of five Eli posts, originally written on August 27th.

Last time, as soon as we were matched, I ordered up a big batch of every picture of Rose that came with her referral. We taped them up over the desk in the kitchen, partly because I wanted the kids to get used to looking at her cleft, but also because I was so excited I wanted to shout out her existence from the rooftops. And in my way, with my blog and facebook, I did just that. We added to that photo wall every time families from our Xuzhou Yahoo group visited the orphanage to adopt their kids and took pictures of the waiting children.

This time, I printed pictures of Eli, but I haven't put them up yet. I haven't made a public announcement on my blog, or on facebook, or even told my best girlfriends on the message board I've been on for more than ten years. If you know about it, it's because I needed something, like a reference letter, from you. Annie, in particular, is desperate to tell her friends, but I keep putting her off. "Tell them when our dossier goes to China, or better yet, when we have LOA," I say to her.

We set up the crib in the girls' room the weekend after our match, mostly because I wanted the room to represent Rose. We bought bedding, and gave Rose her own space, even though it would be almost six more months before she'd start living in it.

This time, I specifically told the boys that we wouldn't be moving them down to the basement until after Christmas. I can't start turning their upstairs bedroom into Eli's room until they're out of it.

I know all of this makes it sound like I'm not excited about the adoption, but I am. I can't wait to have Eli join our family. But it hasn't been long enough for me to forget how hard the wait was. It was agonizing to know that our daughter was waiting in China, receiving just enough care and attention to keep her going, when she could have been home with us. Last time, all of our paperwork was already in China when we were matched, and we waited six months from the time we first saw her face-- she grew from a five-month-old to an eleven-month-old. She didn't learn to roll, didn't learn to sit, didn't learn to crawl, didn't have her lip or palate closed-- all things that would have happened if she'd been home with us. I know that every "I" has to be dotted and every "T" has to be crossed, but that doesn't make the wait any easier.

This time, we decided to be matched with Eli before our paperwork was in China. We still need to get a pre-approval from USCIS in order to send our dossier to China, and in order to send our file to USCIS, we need to get background checks and home study updates and all that good stuff. We are working hard to get it done as quickly as possible, but chances are that we will wait nine months for Eli. He may be nineteen months instead of ten by the time he's in our arms.

This time, I know exactly how hard it is to wait. I know that when other families visit the orphanage, I'll feel a mix of delight and dread-- delight that I'll get to see his face, and dread that he's still lying on his back, dread that those four or five images are all I'll have to sustain me until the next time. I'll print them off,  put them on the wall, and examine every inch of them, just like I did with Rose.

Telling people opens us up to all kinds of scrutiny. You only brought home Rose five months ago, isn't it too soon? Are you going to be able to meet Eli's needs? Wow, six kids is a huge family! Do you think you'll be able to be there for your "own" kids when you've added two more? (btw, Rose and Eli are my "own" kids).

And once we tell people, it's fair game for them to want to talk to us about it. On the one hand, I'm excited to talk. But on the other hand, I usually have so little to report. I'll be waiting, not very patiently. We may get something in the mail and run to the notary to get it off for the next step, but mostly we're waiting, and our son is growing up without us.

So the pictures of Eli stay in their envelope, where I pull them out a couple of times a day, peek at them, and blow him a little kiss. I hope it reaches him, all the way in China.

Book Review: Wild Swans by Jung Chang

Title: Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China
Author: Jung Chang
Enjoyment Rating: ***
Source: Personal Copy
Books I've read this year: 102

This book came highly recommended. So highly recommended that after letting it fall into the part of my nightstand pile that I never quite manage to get to, I plucked it out and forced myself to read. Last year at this time, all I wanted to read was books about China. Now that we're preparing to bring another kid home, reading books about China feels more like eating my vegetables. That's probably because I read so many adorable, fun memoirs last year, which leaves me to read things like histories, which are important and necessary reading, but I don't necessarily enjoy them. Wild Swans tells the story of Jung Chang, born in the early 1950s in China to parents who were provincial leaders in the Communist Party, as well as her mother and grandmother.

The story itself is remarkable-- the women in this family experienced everything from foot binding and concubinage, to Civil War, World War, the Great Leap Forward, famine, imprisonment, work camps, and finally, moving to the west for higher education. The family's story is really worth hearing, because it humanizes the big events of the 20th century and makes them painfully real.

However, the narrative style made the book difficult to read. The author constantly refers to her mother as "my mother" instead of by name, which made it hard to keep track of who was who. I also found myself skimming toward the end, possibly because I had reached a saturation point with the events of the story. But it's still an important story to read and one that definitely broadened my understanding of Chinese history.