Frequent Flyer

For all the nail-biting moments of travelling alone with a small child there are also some curious intimacies.

For one thing I learned that the customs and immigration officer who stamped our papers was the child of a parent who had a drug problem. Not something you generally get in those intimidating moments in front of the cubicle where it is so quiet it feels like the air has been sucked out of your space and the temperature has suddenly spiked. You stand there sweating, breathing hard, and the man (or woman) behind the very high counter is avoiding eye contact except when they ask you questions designed to trap you in a lie or set you up for a strip-search.
"Any articles to declare?" My customs form says no. What are you trying to imply?
Or the more devious,
"So, what's the weather been like in Los Angeles lately?" Oh, I don't know being that I was just smuggled in on a container ship.

As a Canadian I have a healthy fear of authority so even though I have nothing to hide I am a mass of nervous ticks inside a frozen smile during the questions they so casually pose while they are picking a pass or fail number to write in red ink on my entry card. But when Sweetpea and I were returning from a visit to family in Vancouver this past weekend we discovered that a lot of people wanted to get closer to us in one way or another. It took some getting used to. They want to touch Sweetpea's hair, or hold her while I rifle through my diaper bag for a baby-wipe.

They talk to you more often, too.

The U.S. immigration officer was particularly friendly while he was examining my passport (Canadian) and Sweetpea's (Chinese). He examined the documents carefully and checked some things on his computer.

"I'm an adoptee, too." he offered.
"Really!" I put my elbows on the counter and leaned in to get closer, something I wouldn't ever have dreamed of doing in the past. "And how was your experience?"
Why on earth I was asking the immigration guy about his personal life is beyond me but he started it.
"I'm from Korea and my parents took five of us right after the war."
"Wow."
"Yeah, they had to pass a bill in Congress to let her take all of us."
"Amazing. Was it good, your life? I mean, are you glad you were adopted?"
He fiddled with his pen.
"It was fine."
I waited.
He looked a little sad.
"Well, my mother, she was......" He stopped and gazed off, lost in thought. The people in line behind me were perplexed at our body language. We looked as though we were two old friends having coffee. Sweetpea was quietly chirping in the background.
He sighed. "Let's just say she abused prescription medications."
"Oh," was all I could manage.
"But, you know, she did have five of us". Oh, brother, I do understand!
I wanted to take his hand. Friends do that when they are sharing intimate things about their lives and one or the other is having a tough time.
"But look at you," I said brightly. He had a sweet and kindly way about him and obviously had a steady job.
"Oh, yeah, I turned out okay - joined the Marines and then took this position with the government."
Good for you!
I smiled encouragingly, ready to get my papers and make my flight.
"But my brother....."
I stopped, lowered my bags, and put my elbows back on the counter.

I never got his name but I think both of us will remember this encounter in an otherwise stream of anonymous faces. I really did want to know what it had been like for him. Sometimes I forget that Sweetpea didn't come from my belly, but other times I am looking out for her wellbeing in ways that other parents can never understand. I am trying to watch for pitfalls, large and small, for pearls of wisdom and insights from other's experiences that will help me to make the right choices about how to bridge her beginnings and our shared future.

One thing I do know. That man wanted to love his mother very much. And I think he even forgave her to some degree. Later on the plane, Sweetpea squirmed, pouted, and threw her mega blocks all the way up into First Class and I gritted my teeth as we bumped and rolled our way across the thousand or so miles home. Then the clouds parted and for the last half-hour she turned toward me, arms around my neck and I blew on her hair, she laughed and kissed me, then I blew on her hair some more and on it went.

Those moments were pure joy. I will do everything I can to stitch them together for her into a lifetime of memories.

And I'll stay away from prescription drugs.

Daycare Part I

Sweetpea has a big old bruise on her forehead and we are nervous.

It wouldn't have mattered so much but we just put her in daycare. Suddenly the words social services agency are interchangeable with Big Brother.

Why the bruise now? I needed to put Sweetpea in daycare. Just two days a week but she needs to be around other kids and I need to be by myself. Works for both of us. But for those of you familiar with daycare, there is a lot of paperwork you have to sign and some of it has to do with reporting any signs of abuse. People would be looking at our Sweetpea with a jaundiced eye now. They would be watching for signs of something.....

The daycare, we like. It's a nice place, neat as a pin, with lots of toys and friendly children. What makes it unusual is that it's run by a family of Phillipinos, including a grandmother and grandfather. Grandpa is an artist and painted all the colorful murals on the walls. You don't see many middle-aged men working in daycare centers but he was cool. Mimi and I hung out for a few hours to check the place out and decided we liked everyone so we signed up. During our orientation I pointed out that our daughter, who is of Chinese ancestry, has two large birthmarks on her bum that look exactly like nasty bruises. I even printed out an article with pictures on the subject so that they wouldn't think we were spanking our daughter and call the authorities or point fingers.

Of course that night Sweetpea decides to run headlong into a wall during one of her wild escapades with a sippy cup and now there's a big shiner on her forehead.
"Great!" I tried to put a bag of frozen peas on the blossoming bruise but Sweetpea shrieked and pushed it away. I was clucking like a mad hen
"They're gonna think we hit her."
My husband looked nonplussed. He's an athlete so bumps and bruises are a part of life for him.
"No they won't"
"Yes they will....." Oh, never mind.
Soon as we got in the door of L'il Buttercup Retreat the next morning Hector and Nana looked at her and said, "What's that?" All I could do was shrug casually and mumble something about toddlers who are still learning to walk falling off, into, and around objects. Why did I feel so guity?

My pediatrican's office called later that day.
"Can we move your appointment up from next week to tomorrow?"
"Sure." Then I remembered the bruise. Too late, she'd hung up.

Now I have to explain that purplely rosebud on her head to a doctor, too.

Until Sweetpea came along I never thought much about the whole corporal punshiment thing. When I was growing up kids got whuppings for bad behavior and no-one gave it a second thought: boys got the belt, girls got a spanking across the behind. In school we had something called 'the strap'. It was a piece of heavy leather on a loop and kids got it if they did something really bad, like push someone down in the schoolyard and make them bleed or swear repeatedly at a teacher, they were taken out into the yard and given the strap by the principal. Five heavy lashes across the hand. It was done in full view of all the classroom windows on purpose. Add humiliation to the pain and you had a potent deterrent. I never knew anyone personally who got the strap. Usually it was some rough boy who dropped out of school before junior high. The strap defined us early one - once you'd had it you were marked, like a prisoner trying to go straight, for life.

But up and down our suburban street kids were getting it privately at home like it was no big deal. My mother's tool of choice was a flyswatter. We called the flyswatter. Back in those days it had a braided metal handle and a half-circle, pale yellow hole-punched rubber swatter. I guess the holes made it aerodynamic so you could whizz it through the air fast enough to flatten the flies. It may have killed a few of them in our day but for all I can remember it was a quiet presence in our kitchen, hanging on a nail by the refridgerator as a constant reminder to behave, behave, behave. My mother didn't use it very often but there was a ritual to it that I'll never forget.
"Mooooommmmm!!!(insert wrongdoing here)
"Alright young lady apologize to your sister. Now you're going to get The Flyswatter!"
We'd stand in our appointed place by the fridge and my mother would tell us to hold out our hand. We got to pick which one. (Right hand always - more callouses). I don't remember much about what would come next except my mother would always have this wild look in her eye and she would curl her tongue and grimace when she struck. The other thing I remember is that it stung like hell. But never left a mark. My mother was clever that way (or thoughtful, I don't know which). I once knew a guy who was chased around the kitchen by his father trying to give him the belt across his bare behind and he accidentally fell onto a fork sitting prong-up in the dishwasher. They had to rush him to the emergency room.

All in all I think I got the flyswatter about five times before I was too old for that sort of thing. I never thought badly of my mother for doing it, either, which it why it mystified me when the cultural tide turned a few years later and 'they' said it was tantamount to child abuse. Corporal punishment, it turns out, produces bitter, angry children who will never learn to trust people.

Who knew?

My daughter will never get the flyswatter or any other flying object for discipline. She will be a child of the new thinkers of the child rearing field, from Bettleheim to Brazelton. She will have lots of praise for making the right decisions and when she doesn't, time-outs, the naughty chair, and the 1-2-3 method (check it out on Amazon.com). She will have free choice. Naughty or nice, truth or consequences.

That's my plan, anyway.