Mother's Day in America

The Johnson Girls - May 2005

The last Mother's Day I spent in America, my kids were this size.

I had no idea when we dined out that Mom's Day in 2005 (at a time conducive to breastfeeding and nap schedules) that it would be my last Mother's Day in America for ages. We had no idea that an offer to live in China would come just a few months later, and that a few months after that we would agree to to take the plunge. I don't remember many specifics of the day, except that it was warm and sunny, and that I was tired, and we were still working out the system of buckling three kids into their respective boosters, car seats and infant car carriers.

I had fabulous Mother's Days in China... Spent with our family of five and sometimes friends. We ate, almost every year, at the Shangri la Qingdao. We had long leisurely lunches and took seaside walks afterwards. May was one of the finest months in QD, with blue skies and roses spilling over the walls. At least one year my mom was with us on Mother's Day in China... Parenting abroad certainly had it's perks when it came to Mother's Day!

It's Friday, and we are rounding out the week that began with Mother's Day.

It was my first Mother's Day back Stateside.

On that Sunday devoted to moms, I had a cup of French pressed coffee in bed; received thoughtfully planned out, homemade cards; and, triplet clay pots of pansies hand-potted by hands that are growing every more graceful and further and further from the chubby, sticky ones of just a few years ago. There was a lovely chain bearing three simple monograms from The Vintage Pearl (there may have been some not-so-subtle hints towards my desire for this gift), and a totally un-nudged gift from Mr Johnson of a leather bound journal and some nice writing pens: a nod/encouragement/gesture that explains, again, how sometimes he just 'gets me'.

Our morning then included Mother's Day morning at church, followed by brunch at a Midwestern style steakhouse with Mr Johnson's brothers, wives, and parents. In a welcome break from the wet and cold weather we've had so far this spring, the day was absolutely lovely .... making moms merry and their aggie husbands anxiously itching to get into the fields that had been too wet, as of then, to get into.

It has interested us to watch how the girls react to various parts of our transition. Restaurants in the US have not received rave reviews from girlies, who have complex palates for their ages. The Three have sampled the wares of street food vendors in China, Malaysia, and Thailand ... they have wiped the fatty grease drips of cumin laced lamb kebabs off their chins, sampled savory fresh curries from roadside stands (well, not EHJ, but she has tried, every style of Asian rice) and garlic naan in ramshackle vegetarian holes-in-the-wall .... But they have also eaten at five star restaurants where gastronomy and decor are superior to many American chain eateries. So, it was no surprise when we pulled into the parking lot of this establishment (one that a review I later read described as 'folksy') that our oldest let out a small sigh. "I didn't know it was going to be this kind of place" she she muttered from the back seat, as we pulled our import into an angled parking space next to a one-ton Detroit made diesel pick-up with modified smoke stacks.

"This kind of place" was a restaurant that, when I called about an earlier reservation time, and inquired if they were yet taking Mother's Day reservations the husky voice on the other end (I kid you not) replied, "Hell, yah."

The food was the good, down home kind. Meat, meat and meat on one side of the buffet with pastries and fruit on the other side. It was a brunch pretty enough for a mom, but hearty enough for the dads who had carved out an hour or so from their day, before heading to the fields to plant seed corn and soybeans in straight, GPS guided rows.

Bei Bei, confident in the buffet line on her own, came back with a plate of an Adkins dieter. "I got meat, because they didn't have any vegetables." (It's not a joke, given the chance, Bei Bei-- who routinely takes avocados, seaweed or oranges for her morning snack at school-- would choose a cucumber over just about anything else.)

And it was then, as so many other times in our days back in the States, that we realize anew how much life has changed for our kiddos. They are gradually (and [mostly] gracefully) transitioning into a new country and culture. And handling themselves in a way that makes us proud.

What better Mother's Day gift could a mom of TCKs want?

Halus Obama

With so few articles coming without a charge from the NYTimes these days, this lengthy magazine piece on President Obama's Indonesian upbringing, and reflections on his mother is worth reading!

I liked this paragraph:

“I think this is one reason he’s so halus,” Bryant said of the pres­ident, using the Indonesian adjective that means “polite, refined, or courteous,” referring to qualities some see as distinctively Javanese. “He has the manners of Asians and the ways of Americans — being halus, being patient, calm, a good listener. If you’re not a good listener in Indonesia, you’d better leave.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/24/magazine/mag-24Obama-t.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp

Back to the Blog ....

"Lisbon Rocks!" our resident Kindergartener announced this morning, after EHJ informed her that not only can they wear nail polish, they can also wear accessories at their new school.

"Are you going to put that in your blog?" EHJ asked. Noting the cuteness of Bei Bei's response, and perhaps also the paradox between their old and new school. (Which is not to say that their old school did not, in the words of my Nickolodean inspired five-year old 'rock', but that their dress code was much stricter, limiting jewelery to stud earrings and requiring hair to be pulled tidily back with red or black ribbons. Nail polish, as MGJ learned the hard way last fall, was strictly forbidden.)

But alas, I have not blogged. For weeks. February posts were meager. But here we are, thanks to spurring on by my middle (who often would ask for something NOT to be revealed in blogland), getting back on the proverbial horse ... preparing to ride this into the sunset.

I have composed hundreds of blogs in my head. Comparisons I, like The Three, could make. Thoughts about repatriation and the United States and our family and how all these things roll together. There are moments, like this fun and spontaneous one to share. And moments that can't be shared now, when emotions are still fresh, and when tears over where we are in our journey still fall more frequently than we would like.

We are not necessarily unhappy to be here, but we carry so many people and places in our hearts that the reality of settling down and settling in ... the permanence of it .... the putting down roots and putting away suitcases carries a sort of sadness. There is nothing easy about this part of the repatriation process.

And there is a house in disarray. Smaller in someways than we remembered. Tired in ways we had not anticipated. But our house none-the-less, and slowly warming back into a home. There is a mountain of cardboard in our garage, proof that we have gotten somewhere, made some progress, not been swallowed up, by the contents of a forty-foot high cube that arrived on the back of a semi trailer last Tuesday. Five men worked for seven hours unloading our possessions-- books, bicycles, beds, long lost toys and our raiments. On Thursday my parents arrived and with box cutters in hand, to help us unpack and unearth treasures from another land. They helped us organize book shelves and place Ming inspired furniture in our 1920s Arts and Crafts inspired bungalow. They pulled books off the shelves they had dusted and read to The Three, asked about their school, and encouraged three little hearts.

This morning, my parents are gone, The Three are at school. Mr Johnson is at his alternate office working on projects that are steadily picking up (the fact that the program we originally returned to the US for was 'suspended' in January his second day on the job is fodder for other posts with labels like 'stress', 'boredom' and 'you've got to be kidding me'). Outside the sky is dreary. It is raining, a slow drizzly rain. But, as MGJ announced as she stepped out the door and pulled up her hood, "it smells like spring." And indeed a new season is waiting for us ...