Family

I remember the night Elisa was conceived and while I won’t go into details, I often get asked if Elisa was planned or an accident. And despite the answer, here we are, with her at one. I am writing this on the flight to Xian, Yang asleep to my right. Moments ago she told me that earlier today Elisa was standing in her crib, asking for the ayi to hold her. The ayi told her to wait until the clothes were folded. When the ayi was done and went to the crib to pick up Elisa, Elisa waved her off – the rejected child becoming the rejecter. ...

I took Friday off work in order to celebrate Lydia’s last day of being four. I spoiled her, because, you know, she never gets what she wants. I spoiled her, because, you know, the last day of being four is a bitch. I spoiled her because, well, you know. We started out the day at the water park, inside Tuanjiehu Park just on the other side of the 3rd ring road from the main business district of Beijing. While Aidan went on the slides, Lydia was happy to play with another little girl in the shallow water. Next stop, lunch at Annie’s, our favorite casual Italian fare. After lunch onto Fan Dazzle an indoor playground near our old apartment that is still one of their favorites. After a few hour there we headed home for a rest. For dinner we went to Wangjing, sat outside and ate light Chinese fare. Followed by more games, this one involving Aidan and Lydia sitting inside an inflatable clear plastic ball and rolling in water, not unlike this picture for a couple months back ...

About six weeks ago Elisa started wanting to stand. Not, mind you, being force to stand by an over enthusiastic ayi or father, but wanting to stand on her own. It was as if she said the heck with this crawling stuff, I’m just going to jump straight to walking. After all, she has two older siblings who must look super human to her as small people who move among the giants. ...

The phone rings, our land land phone, and I know it is a generational call. Generational because the only people who call our land land are over 70. On the other end is someone who recognizes its me and I recognize they are not so pleased it is me since I don’t speak Chinese. They ask for Yang in Chinese and in my best Chinese I say she is sleeping. It is 9:20am and we had gone to a new popular Beijing nightclub last night which featured Russian transvestites so it can be forgiven if she was still a bit sleepy. The person on the other line says they are Sebastian’s grandmother (mom’s side) and then it dawns on me they must be calling because Sebastian is coming over for the swim club’s race. Then more Chinese, then with my Chinese listening skill I gather they are going to bring Sebastian to the phone so he can translate. I wait. And wait. I figure Sebastian must be going at his own pace, the pace of a ten year old, and I want some more. Then the grandfather comes on the line, says my name, and we both wait. We both wait for Sebastian to come on the line but, well, Sebastian is still on his way to our house from his other grandparents home. ...

On a hot and humid Beijing July morning, Aidan graduated from a Korean kindergarten. Yang and I walked the 10 minutes to his school, through the starbucks, passed a row of simple restaurants offering everything from xinjiang food to casual italian, passed the international hospital, passed the cement twelve story apartment buildings, passed the small shops serving people’s daily needs. We crossed two busy streets, Elisa in stroller, looking both ways. We turned into a small alley and were soon at the school’s gate. The school is called GenMuZanDi which is as international as its name; you won’t find it in any of the school guides for foreigners here. The students are mostly chinese and korean with a couple foreign kids mixed in. From a preparing him for first grade perspective, the school served Aidan well. He had homework most nights, he can do math that some of my siblings would struggle with, he can read and write a fair amount of Chinese. On the other hand, as the small boy in the class and as one of the two mixed boys in the class he didn’t fit in all times. It got better as the year progressed and he came home with his toys and skin in tact. ...

Yang got a call a few weeks back. The ex girlfriend of one of her best friends was getting married and we were invited. On the day of the wedding we awoke early, got dressed in something besides shorts and drove to the west side of Beijing. It was hot and humid and Lydia and Aidan were in the backseat; reusing the outfits they wore for Donnie’s wedding. The bride, Becky, had met a young police officer, a detective. We learned later that his biggest case was breaking up a gang of Alto driving thugs. In case you’ve never seen an Alto, it can be kindly referred to as a subcompact. Seats two, with an engine so small rumors are that it comes with auxiliary pedals. ...

Lydia wants to go outside, down to the open space the sits in the middle of our apartment complex. I’m tired from driving visitors around and want to take a nap, but the eagerness in her eyes is not resistible. We take the elevator down the four floors and head outside. Once there, the place is like a UN (or at least east asian) convention for small people. There are of course Chinese kids, but also Japanese, Korean, American, Australian, and Euros. Lydia fits in with them all and is soon playing while I take my seat on a bench and obsessively check my cell phone. Eventually I put my headphones on and listen to an ESPN podcast. Just in time for Lydia to come running toward me in a mix of whining and crying and outrage. Turns out a little boy had captured a small frog (I’m tempted to say tadpole .. but it is indeed a complete looking mini frog) inside of a plastic coke bottle. Lydia is whining/crying/outraged because she wants one, and not able to find one she wants the little boy’s frog. ...

Yang got a cold call asking her if we wanted to go fencing. The cold caller had two advantages on reaching Yang vs. me. First, Yang would actually speak with them. Second, Yang could actually understand what they were saying. So, Yang agreed to take Aidan and Lydia to the “free” fencing lesson at the Olympic fencing center. We got there and it was packed. More packed than a Hawaiian timeshare sale to get a free snorkeling trip. Aidan and Lydia got the requisite five minute instruction and then Aidan was off to fight his first match. I got to admit, Aidan loved it. ...

In the past six months, something has happened to Lydia. She became a sweetheart. Sure, there has been a few bumps along the way – like the time when she told Yang she would find her a better husband, one that spoke Chinese – but mostly it has been an upward ascension of niceness. I come home from work and she runs to me and hugs me. All this without asking for candy or in tears because the ayi cannot draw a van gogh replica. The topper was on Sunday when we visited one of Yang’s oldest and closest and up tight friends in Beijing. Lydia told her “auntie, you are so pretty” and this woman of late 40s just melted. This woman who has been known to turn water into ice looked like a little kid again. ...

When my plane reached the gate at Beijing International a squad of Chinese health officials (workers?) came on board and announced they would take our temperatures in light of the H1N1 flu. The announcement lasted for about 10 seconds in English and 100 seconds in Chinese. Then the officials walked down the aisle taking the thermal reading of each passenger by pointing a sensor at our foreheads. Once off the plane we walked through another health check and another thermal reading. Upon passing immigration I was handed a card that recommended I stay at home for seven days..a self quarantine. Having passed and not to having fellow passengers with fevers, who where mexican citizens, or had visited mexico, I was feeling lucky. Luckier than two of my co-workers who upon return from the states had been quarantined in a two star hotel for seven days…because a fellow passenger had been confirmed with H1N1. ...