Zoe's friends, all China adoptees, and the wait staff at the restaurant, all Chinese, sang her Happy Birthday first in Chinese and then in English. The restaurant then played happy birthday in Chinese over the loudspeaker, and brought her a pretty plate of dessert.
I don't know how we're going to top this tomorrow, on her actual birthday!
5 comments:
Happy Birthday to your beautiful girl!!
We had a great time! I still feel full from overstuffing myself at the buffet.
Happy birthday to your daughter. I have to ask though, you said, "Her friends (at the birthday gathering), all china adoptees" Was there a purpose for inviting only China adoptees? Or is that her main selection of friends anyway? I mean no disrespect by asking this question, but I am curious. Was that an important aspect of the party for you? For your daughter?
And that poses a question in my own head, if we, as APs should encourage having selected friends who have similar adoptive backgrounds, or not.
DD has one classmate in her class this year, who happened to be adopted from China a year prior from my daughter, but they don't seem as close as her mother and I assumed they might become, because of their similar backgrounds.
Actually, this is the group of people we go out with every Saturday after Chinese School. Usually we go to McD's to let the kids play after 3 long hours studying, but Zoe wanted to turn it into a birthday celebration. And yes, these girls are her good friends. Her best friend is also a China adoptee. So is Maya's best friend. And that has a lot to do with the fact that they go (or went) to regular school with them.
I think it is really good for my kids to have friends who have families like theirs. I also think it is good for them to have friends who have Chinese families. And, through school, they have friends of a variety of backgrounds.
Though China adoptees have one big thing in common, that's no guarantee they'll become friends. I think it is important for APs to create opportunities for our kids to make friends with adoptees, but we can't MAKE them like each other!
We have several groups of China adoptee friends, some pretty close friends, some more remote because of less exposure. But even when the less-familiar girls get together, they seem to love the get-togethers.
Hope that she continued to have a love birthday celebration!
M.
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