WEIRD

Travel is broadening, or so it is said.  That's one of the reasons behind those 5 months we spent in China, for driving to and from Washington, D.C.  I want to raise kids who are open to different cultures, different ideas, different places.  I think that's important for all kids, but even more for kids like mine -- adopted, Chinese, in a single-parent family where mom and kids don't match.  For many, you look up the word "weird" in the dictionary, and you find a picture of us.

So you can imagine how much I dislike Maya's newest favorite word -- WEIRD.  If Maya hasn't seen it before, if Maya doesn't like it, if Maya thinks it's different, she labels it WEIRD.  Oh, and not in a good way, like "I love weird things!"

Example:  There's a 7-11 on New Hampshire Ave., near our hotel in Washington, D.C.  Maya looks at it and says, "That 7-11 looks WEIRD."  Why is it weird, I ask?  Well, it doesn't have gas pumps in front, or the familiar orange-and-green logo.  "Oh," I respond, "It's not WEIRD, it looks different from what you're used to."  I even moralized after she got an Icee at the 7-11:  "See, it looks different from what you're used to on the outside, but it was the same on the inside, wasn't it?!" (I know, I'm completely insufferable!)

And that became the theme of the trip -- every time Maya called something WEIRD, I said, "You mean it looks different from what you're used to."  It seemed to me that it was working, the number of times Maya said WEIRD seemed to be decreasing.

And then this morning, the first day back to school after Spring Break, Maya says, "It sure was WEIRD waking up to the alarm clock instead of a wake-up call!"  Sigh.