Sooo, just skip the "Adoption' thread if you're not interested. It just happens to be my obession (oh SHUT UP, some people obsess about Manga, some obsess about famous people, or Visual Kei, or 50cent, or future weddings, or death, or....(I should probably stop). Well *I* obsess about adoption! I teach Sunday School and have made friends with like, all of the 5 year old kids at my apt building. I am way excited to become a MOM and I can't wait to have my homestudy(ies), be DTC, hunt for ladybugs (I already do), experience GOTCHA DAY, and celebrate Forever Family Days! Weeeeehooooo!!
Anyway, if you know me, then you also know some of the challenges I've faced thus far (and hell, I've got 8yrs to go for China, 3yrs for Korea, and like 1yr for Eithopia!), from the closest people possible. So, as a disclaimer, this is personal, and while some of it is funny, it's not *all the way* funny.
Oh, another disclaimer-this conversation was originally almost all in Mandarin, so the translation isn't exactly exact (you know what I mean:). I tried my best, though.
Last night Hanxin and I were at the bus stop, and he was talking about how it would be easy to find a teaching position at a small university like I want, if we weren't together.
"You'll be a great professor," he said.
"Yep," I said. "And you'll be great living in DC and doing intelligence work. And I'll get calls late at night from your kid, and he'll be like, AIYI! My dad made me quit the soccer team! He said I can't do it anymore because I didn't finish the extra homework he gave me!
"Well," I'll say (in this not-too-fictional scenario). "What grade did you get on the extra homework?"
"C!" He says.
"Well, what are you grades in school?"
"All A's!," he'll respond.
"Hmm, where's your dad? Put him on the phone."
"He's not here, Aiyi."
"Oh. Well, let me talk to your grandmother, then."
At which point, "Little" Hanxin will put his grandmother on the phone. "Ei, Hanxinmama, how are you?"
"Oh, very good. I'm very well. God help me to enjoy days." (His mother is was religious)
"Great. Is Hanxiin around?"
"Oh, no. He's still at work."
"At 11PM??"
"Yes, he's still at work."
At which point, Hanxin's wife, a sweet, passive, Sweedish woman, picks up the phone.
"Oh, is there someone on the phone?"
"Oh, yep, sorry, it's just Ruona. I'm looking for Hanxin." (Note in this scenario things seem to be going rather nicely-his wife is soo nice to me! As I'd expect her to be, Hanxin is an impeccable judge of character :-P )
"Oh, well Ruona. So nice to hear from you. No, I'm sorry. Hanxin is still at work. You might try his cell phone, though, he always leaves it on." (And running! This boy's phone is glued to his ear with something that muuust be toxic.)
"Okay then, I'll try him there. Thanks. Talk to you both later, then!"
Then, I finally get Hanxin on his cell phone.
"Ey, Datou, how's it going? You're still at work?"
"No, actually, I' just got out of the gym."
"Hmm, yes, 11pm, son, wife, and mother, and the gym takes precedence. You didn't wake up this morning?"
"Well, no...."
"Hmm. SO, your son tells me you made him quit the soccer team! And because he didn't do well enough on the EXTRA homework! What's that about?"
"Well, Ruona, he IS 12 year old now. He needs to be thinking about the SAT's."
"Really? Is that SO?"
At this point, and I know you're probably bored by now (I am, and my memory is fading correspondingly), but Hanxin stops me. He was giggling the whole bus ride home. By this time, the bus stops across from the basketball courts, and we "disembark the motorcoach" (as my middle school bus driver, Mr. Coch-imagine the heyday we had with that one) used to say".
So we step off, and he's trying to get me to shut up, but I'm on a roll. Suprisingly, he's mostly just mad at the prospect that in all this fantasizing (though he started with the idea), we might not be together at some point in the future. So we just sort of sink into solitude, him looking hard at something indescribable, and me taking in the leaves lit by the street-light.
"Besides," he says. "You never know. We could just adopt a whole bunch of Chinese kids."
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