Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Not My Family

We watched Sesame Street this morning, all three of us on the couch (I love vacation!). During Elmo's World, a little girl and her mother visited the museum to see dinosaur bones. Zoe said about the girl, "She looks Chinese!" She did -- and her mother was Caucasian. Maya said, "They made their family like ours." I agreed that that was likely, and Zoe said, "You're not my family. I'm just visiting!"

She was speaking jokingly, so I did, too, doing my "you can't get rid of us that easily -- we're a family forever" thing. "No," she replied, "I'm just visiting forever, Mrs. Seymore. I'll come over every day." Come over from where, I ask, half expecting her to say "China." Nope -- "From Zachary's house!" [Zachary is a school friend who lives on our block.]

Then a clear subject change, as Zoe started silly rhymes along with Abby Cadaby. . . .

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am go glad to find your new blog. I followed Xiamen Adventure with great interest and took you at your word when you said that journey was done! ha ha I never checked back and I'm sorry! You're back! And I'm glad! I have a lot of catch-up reading to do!

Lee in Canada

Jeff and Madeline said...

I love the fun conversations, especially about where M will live when she is old (sometimes with us, sometimes in China, sometimes next door, etc).

Wendy said...

Camille hasn't noticed families like ours, though today at the library there were 3 Chinese women (they were speaking Mandarin) and their children and she pointed them out and said, "hey, there are Chinese people here!" It was pretty neat to have her recognize them as Chinese specifically (I asked and they were from Chengdu). There was a Korean family there too and she didn't mention them.

Joanne said...

Just curious, Mia will be 3 yrs old in Feb (wow!); at what age do these questions and statements:) begin?!!

henna's hearsay said...

My two year old just shocks my heart on occasion. Just the other day she blurted out that she did not want to go to China. She gets sad when we look at pictures of her adoption, but can't stop. She says she doesn't want to go back to the room in Nanchang where they handed us our babies ("that room.")

She has three older siblings (bio) that love to point out everything Chinese. I don't quite have a grasp of how she processes this information.

She got the Karito Ling doll for her 3rd birthday this week and happily announced, "a Chinese one!" My first thought was that my bio daughter never commented about the race of the dolls she got (black, white, hispanic.)

I'm glad to find your site! Always lots to think about on these issues!

a fellow Texan