A Question About Love

It was a question asked out of the clear blue about eight years ago. The Prince had gone to school with me and was running around on the playground with my Kindergarten students. A mom had stopped by to take her child home early and was standing with me enjoying the sunshine, the sight of healthy, happy little kids racing all around, swinging and climbing on play structures. She noticed my Korean born child and started to ask me something. Something that was stuck in her throat and then came out in a rush. She said she loved her child more than she could possibly have imagined. She had from the very first...as he grew inside her. She stumbled over the next part and finally asked me how I could possibly love MY children in that same way?

Wow. That was an interesting moment. It has stayed with me all of these years. Pops up at odd times. Wierd times. I can still see her face...and the face of her child so much like hers. I have thought often about this incomprehensible, defining kind of love that she was talking about. Did I? Do I? I have never felt the stirrings and movements of a little body inside mine. I have not shared that sort of thing with my husband. I have not gone through physical labor pains. I have not given birth. I don't know if those things could possibly make my feelings any different than they already are.

My husband has daughters from another marriage that he loves desperately. I don't know that he feels anything less intense for the son and daughter that arrived by plane. He has definitely has had more 'quanity time' with these two. Back in the days of weekend visitations we used to commisserate by telling each other we were giving his girls 'quality time' at our house. I have since learned that 'quality/quanity' doesn't really matter. It's 'time' that does. Any kind of time. But that's getting off subject.

My son was four months old when he was first placed in our arms. My daughter was five years old when we first hugged her. We did a paper chase and a homestudy process and bared our souls to strangers and to one another trying to decide if we were right to be parents...and if we were ready to be parents. We waited with hearts in throats for those phone calls and papers that validated our decisions and searches. We put together a crib ...and later a bed. Selected clothing we wanted to see them wear. Chose curtains and first books and first toys. Is that kind of what you go through with a pregnancy?

I would imagine that those first photographs that we saw were very much like the first ultrasound images that other people see. I knew instantly that these were my children. I didn't cry...which I think surprised our caseworker. But I remember a definite tightening in my throat. A swelling in my heart. I couldn't wait for them to be here. To be in my arms. To feel the softness of their hair. To kiss their cheeks. To smell their smells. Is that what you go through too? The waiting?

Our labor took place in a court room. The 'birth' was completed with the dash of a pen. But those days were the happiest days of our lives. Overwhelming happy days. They were safe. They were finally here and they were ours. Is that what you go through too?

We celebrated and stressed over first steps...first teeth....first missing teeth...first days of school...homework woes....and little friendships and fights. We planned overwhelming birthday parties and laid back sleepovers, attended parent conferences and programs. We've sat in emergency rooms waiting and worrying. Looking ahead we see boy friends and girl friends, first dates, proms and....shudder.....driver's licenses on the very near horizon. Is that so very different than you?

I worried about missing the babyhood firsts with my daughter....but I didn't. We shared a different kind of firsts. The firsts of an older child. The look on a five year old's face when she bit into her first piece of watermelon....sat on her very first bicycle....went swimming for the first time. It was all there. On a different level. Much like your experiences?

It's hard for someone who has not gone through an adoption process to understand how we could - so completely and utterly - love someone elses' child. But they miss the point totally. This is our child. Our son. Our daughter. No more. No less. Completely. Incomprehensible. Defining. Like yours.

In A Perfect World

My children are Asian in a Caucasian world. It sounds like such a simple statement. But it's really not. People who adopt outside of their own race tend to see a child. Not an Asian child or a Black child or a Hispanic child....or any of the combinations in between. We see just a plain old child whose toes we have kissed and whose hair we have learned to style. We see the child that stresses about oatmeal for breakfast and spelling tests and social studies projects. A child.

And since they don't really see themselves, as a rule, I think it takes a while for a trans racially adopted child to see that their parents are different from them. My son was blessed to attend a small daycare that encompassed a myriad of shades in it's clientele for a couple of years. The director/teacher tried very hard to foster acceptance and awareness of differences. She worried that my son wasn't aware of his. After spending a week or two collecting pictures of faces of many races, she set out having her students compile a mural about themselves. They were to select pictures to glue on their posters beginning with a face that looked like theirs. My son looked them all over carefully and then selected one of an adult Black man. His teacher tried to get him to exchange it for the Asian face but he said 'no'....that the one he had was correct because he had black hair too.

Because we knew the state of things in his elementary school, we started early 'desensitizing' him to looks and stares and questions. We hoped that we were giving him tools to help people understand and to make him proud of being 'different.' We must have done our job well enough because it never crossed our minds to do the same with our daughter. The first time she was teased about her 'Chinese Eyes', it devestated her....and ME. But that moment was just a blip in her expanding world. She is well liked because she is funny and positive and a gifted athlete. My son has a killer sense of humor, a dry wit and is also a gifted athlete. He is a quiet kind of leader, willing to follow and not really understanding that he has others waiting to follow HIS lead.

We were having dinner in a restaurant in my sister's small southern town recently. I caught a lot of people - especially older people - watching my children. Some, in the same way that I watched the little girls with huge bows and freckled face boys with big eyes at the buffet bar....and some not the same way at all. People wonder. And so do I. I wonder if it is going to matter that they have been raised a minority in a Caucasian world. I wonder if it's going to matter that they have really shown no interest in learning more about Korea or Russia. I wonder if it will matter that I never forced it on them. I wonder if their birth origins will matter to the people they want to spend time with.....to date. I wonder if knowing so litle about their biological family will matter healthwise. In a perfect world it won't. And when we can look at another person and not see the Asian face...the Black face...the Hispanic face....or any of the combinations in between....just a person....it will be a perfect world.

Go Figure

The Princess and I had a wonderful day together on Saturday. The Prince had spent the night with a friend and was not going to be home till late afternoon. Her daddy was working so we decided to check out a skateboard shop someone had told us about. It was about a 45 minute drive from home. Nice place. LOTS of board choices and she found one she had been eyeing online for a while. She was willing to empty her summer vacation money fund to get it and I was feeling pretty amiable so I agreed. We were driving home and she was caressing it and chattering on about it. Struts and bearings and grips. My daughter. A skateboard. Heh. Not exactly what I expected.

I have been a doll lover from the get go. Patty Play Pal. Chatty Cathy. Barbie. Tiny Tears. I had them all. And I played with them. My sister will tell you that she learned more about history by playing Barbies with me than she ever did from a textbook. We contructed Conestoga prarie wagons from shoe boxes so Barbie and Ken could travel the Oregon Trail. We filled the bath tub with water and set them sailing on an 'ocean white with foam' as they became Irish immigrants escaping the potato famine. They were forever running away from the Nazis. The bendable wire in Tutti's leg broke. No problem. We wrapped it in pipe cleaners and thread and the little doll became one of Sister Kenny's polio patients. Heh. I was doing the history/doll thing LONG before the American Girl Doll company came up with Felicity and Molly and Kirsten and Samantha and the rest of that very expensive gang.

As an adult I discovered a tremendous ceative op in learning to make porcelain dolls. Made quite a few over the years. So did my mother and my husband. I have also made large rag dolls in the Raggedy Ann style...with my own face design and costumes. Sold a number of those. Made two of them several Christmases ago for my stepdaughter's twins. Is it any wonder that I could barely contain my excitement at the thought of having a daughter to share that love with? Riiiight. But that's not what I got.

Oh...my daughter likes dolls. From a distance. Or stuffed under her bed. Or shut away in her closet. I should have known when we first saw her in Russia. Two little girls in her orphanage family group were off playing with a play hospital set up in the corner of the playroom. SHE was rolling on the floor with the little boys, playing with several toy trucks. I had brought along a small Beanie Baby doll for her to play with while we traveled home. She was much more interested in using the travel sewing kit to put beads and trinkets on the doll's little dress. She was five. When she could finally speak English well enough she said she has never liked dolls because they 'stare at her' all the time. Heh.

Well, I kept on plugging. She had a baby doll with a box full of clothes but didn't really know how to play with her. Stuffed in the closet. She is not really into clothes at all so Barbie held no interest. Stuffed under her bed. On her first trip to Chicago - when she was eight - I was so excited to take her to The American Girl Place....where Felicity and Molly and Kirsten and Samantha and the rest of that expensive gang reside. Kind of snuck in there actually. She really had no clue. She and her brother were fascinated by all the 'little' stuff. Little guitars. Little hiking boots. Little lunchboxes and plastic foods. They were playing quite happily with a little school set in the middle of a room for 'Hop Scotch Hill Kids' dolls when she stood up. I was watching her face as she slowly gazed around at her surroundings. There were dolls on display along the tops of the showcases. On the shelves below were boxes and boxes of dolls with an oval cut out so you could see the face of the one inside. Faces. With open, glassy eyes. All around her. All staring at her. My daughter's brows lowered and her hands balled into tight little fists. "Get...me....outta...here....this place is FREAKING ME OUT!" she began shrieking. Loud. VERY loud. And very clear. I grabbed her by the hand and we made our way - quickly - out of the store. Past the dolls with staring eyes. Past mothers and daughters with their dolls, heading for the doll boutique and the Tea Room where dolls had their own little seats at the table. Never tried to get her to take to a doll after that. Heh.

So now she is not quite thirteen, sitting in the car seat next to me caressing a new skateboard and chattering on. I guess I can learn to love it too. It has a drawing of a girl skateboarder on it after all. She is going to add the struts and wheels....and bearings...herself. MY daughter. Go figure.

(The picture is an old one.....when she was six. You probably can't see that her tonuge is hanging out as she does this trick....a habit that still sticks today.)

What a heartbreaking day.....

I didn't work today. Well...I did several loads of laundry...loaded the dishwasher....vacummed....mundane stuff. I should have been grading the MOUNDS of papers I have in my backpack. I planned to. Really. Instead I have been riveted to my computer gleaning news about a family I have never even met. Celebrity Baby Blog (okay...I go there to see what's up with Angelina and her crew...and to ponder exactly what purpose Tori Spelling serves in the entertainment biz??) had the news of the tragedy in Steven Curtis Chapman's family. I went immediately to his family web site - and I subscribe to his video blog as well. The loss of their youngest child, a just turned five year old and one of his three 'China Angels', had been killed in an accident in their very own driveway. Just hours after a family celebrated their oldest daughter's engagement and before another celebration of a son's high school graduation. I can't get my mind off of this. So unbearably sad.

Adopting a baby from China had been their eldest daughter's idea. After adopting Shaohannah, the entire Chapman Family was driven to do more for the children in need of families in China. They adopted twice more, bringing home Stevey Joy and Maria Sue. SCC gushes with pride and joy about his family at every opportunity....at every concert. He is a ridiculously adorable doting Dad. He has taken his family to China to do mission work in the orphanages there. Because of my own connection with international adoption, I read about their 'Shaohannah's Hope' foundation that provides financial aid to families wishing to adopt shortly after they formed it. I have seen blog posted pictures of their crazy play dates with other families who have adopted their own 'angels.' I remember chuckling a bit as I watched their youngest bouncing on the bed as she sang a song to their blog audience, thinking that she had the energy level of my own daughter. I remember thinking 'God help those poor souls!' LOL And He certainly did.
The Chapman Family has been very, very blessed to have had God lead them to Maria Sue. And she has been blessed that God brought them to her. Even for such a short time. My heart goes out to all of them right now. Losing a little one so full of life and joy at such a precious time in their life is truely heartbreaking. So give the child in your life a hug today....in remembrance of Maria Sue.

Gifts

I have been cruising through blogs based on infertility lately. Don't really know why. I post occasionally and share our adoption story. Infertility has been an issue with us but not a deeply rooted one. We were older than most when we were married. He had two biological daughters from another marriage so it wasn't a real issue with him to have another. I had been curiously interested in adoption from a very young age. Probably because - when I was 10 - one of my favorite books to read and reread was one called 'The Family Nobody Wanted' by Helen Doss. It's the inspiring story of a minister and his wife who adopted twelve children of different races and varying shades into one family. And then there was 'They Came to Stay' by Marjorie Margolies. This her adoption story - Lee Heh from Korea and Holly from Viet Nam - as a single parent. Interesting that it wasn't difficult - after all these years - to remember their names. I could probably still reel off most of the Doss kids as well.

Thanks to the internet, I have been in contact with both authors in the past several years. I let them know how their stories came to play in my own life. Adoption? No biggie. Lots of paperwork. Lots of curious questions from people who have not done it. Different? Don't really think so....in the long run. We have our differences and similarities based on the fact that we are males and females who share the same house...the same experiences....the same arguments.....same laughs. I wasn't really sure if my kids really felt the same. Are the lines between biological and adoption as blurred for them as it is for me? Maybe.

I went to my daughter's educational planning meeting the other day. Her Study Skills teacher told me that she'd given her students a paragraph to write in class and was very impressed with my daughter's work. She had a little conference with her to discuss how thoughtful the piece was...how varied the language...how well written it was. She said my daughter just smiled and leaned in close - conspiratorially - and whispered, "Yeah.....and I get that from my Mom."

Sad/Happy Truths

Dang. We were right in the middle of crossing a busy street in Chicago when she said it. Just came right out and asked. "So...are you my STEP-mom or what?" The Mom walking with us stopped for a split second and did a double take back at us. We scurried across to the sidewalk and I assured her, matter of factly, that I was her MOM....that she also has a birth mom but we don't know anything about her. That I was Kylee and Linnea's step-mom, because I was married to their birth dad. She shrugged and nodded. End of conversation.

Until we were on the bus to a museum the next day. She was standing and holding the pole for support - just because she wanted to stand - when she asked me if I knew anything about them. I knew who she was talking about. I knew she was mulling her history over in her head. But I made her ask.

"Who?"

"My mom and dad? My BIRTH parents?"

I told her that I knew nothing at all....except that they were very smart. She thought that over for a moment and then asked me how I knew. I told her because of where they left her.

"At a BUS STOP?"

She was horrified. Almost angry in fact. And then I explained that they left her at a busy place where they knew someone would find her quickly. They could have left her in the woods where a wild animal could have gotten to her....or in an abandoned house without food and water. They were smart enough to leave their sweet little toddler in a safe enough place. I could see her rolling this concept over in her head - the very same thing she had been told numerous times before - and she nodded thoughtfully. End of conversation.

Until we were sharing a fruit cup for lunch in the basement of the museum.

"Do you know what they look like?"

I shook my head and she was a little saddened. There was nothing to share with her. Just a police report. End of conversation.

Until were were on the 'L' a little later on our way to meet our Girl Scout comrades for dinner. I had been waiting to ride the L. Any ER freak can tell you that the show is ALL about what happens on the L. I was all about absorbing the sounds and sights of the L.

"Can we go back to Russia to see them....maybe?"

This time I shook my head. I explained that we could go back to Russia someday. I had planned to do that with her. We could see the baby home where she was taken and the orphanage where she was living when we met her for the first time. But we probably would not be able to see her parents. She thought about this a moment and then nodded.

"I wish I had a picture of them." Screw the L. My heart was breaking for my beautifully curious and sensitive daughter.

I wondered where all of this was coming from....at this time. Off guard. But then, I began to realize that we were in the middle of a strange busy city with 17 of her Girl Scout friends and 14 of their Moms. Moms and daughters that looked like each other, walked and shopped like each other, laughed and talked like each other. We shared a room with a mom and daughter that were almost mirror images of one another. And then there was us. As different from one another as night and day. At least when her dad and brother were with us we were joined by the common bond of being female. As I watched her in the midst of her friends, dancing to a 50's tune with our wild and crazy waiters, I pondered her dilemma. Feeling a part of things and yet different from them. It was like a bubblegum bubble in my throat for the rest of the night. Getting bigger and bigger. It didn't get better till much later...when we were snuggled together in the bed we shared in the hotel. I wrapped my arm around her and she laced her fingers in mine.

"I love you, Mom."

Pop...goes the bubblegum. End of conversation.

Quadruple Whammy

Oh, I am SO not ready for this. He turned fourteen today and I was gently reminded that it's only eight more months until he is eligible to take driver's education. I was making chocolate chip pancakes at the time and trying to decide which plastic plate should be his - the Ronald McDonald soccer player or the Cat in the Hat mini-plate? Swallowed a huge lump in my throat and chose the Cat in the Hat. After breakfast and before the mad dash to the car for a ride to school, I proof read the rough draft of an English paper that was due today. He'd chosen the common theme of kids growing up too fast from the books 'Across Five Aprils' and 'Soldier's Heart.' He wrote, "Kids want to be adults because they get to do more things and then they forget about following their own dreams." Aww.

Baked a cake today. Chocolate with chocolate frosting and color flaming candles - per his request. Met them at my school and worked on homework in the library before a meeting I needed to attend. I was going over Science vocabulary with his sister when he nonchalantly handed me a large yellow envelope. High School registration forms. HIGH SCHOOL! It's looming just slightly over the horizon. I swallowed the lump in my throat and looked through the catalog as he went on excitedly about which electives he was thinking about taking....and watched him fill out the sports interest form with round, still childish script. Sigh.

We went out to dinner at a restaurant he'd chosen. His sister had an announcement and there was a scuffle of feet under the table. She glanced at him in consternation and then silently sat back in her seat. It took a few wiggles and jabs but we were finally told that he'd asked a girl to dance at the school Valentine celebration last week. The girl had told his sister about it yesterday. A very proud and giggly girl told her about in the hall between classes. She even knows her name.....which I told her to keep a secret. She is a sister after all and I know he'll tell me some day soon. Instant flashback. Black slacks, slate gray shirt AND....behold all wonders....a silver TIE! I would have been giggling too. He was one handsome dude that night.

Then it hit me. Fourteen? Driver's Ed? High School? Girls?

Quadruple whammy.

I am SO not ready for this. Sigh.

Chinese Eyes

Middle school is a hard world. I sent you off filled with excitement and apprehensions about lockers and combinations and teachers and lunch times and homework. But not the bus. You could hardly wait to ride the bus. Today, just three days into the new school year, you got off that bus, marched to the car and promptly burst into tears. I had to get you inside fast because that big, yellow bus came barreling down that skinny side street right at us. I was brusque and you were crying. My heart was breaking. 'Chinese eyes', you said. Two boys. Teasing. Trying to make you mad. Well, it worked. You were mad....and then your feelings were hurt.

This is a tremendous credit to the teachers of your elementary school. You were one of maybe three Asians, in a kid population that was 700 strong. That population was mostly Caucasians with a sprinkling of Hispanics, Blacks and Biracials. Interestingly enough , there were also handful of Russian adoptees. You are very proud of your heritage as a rule....as mixed up as it is. Russian but Asian. And this is the very first time you have ever had to deal with the 'Chinese eyes' issue. No doubt your middle school will have the same sort of reaction to bullying, intolerance and acceptance. Give them a chance.

But what about those 'Chinese eyes' of yours?

Those eyes have seen the landscapes of a very beautiful Tuva, Russia from hugely tall windows of an orphanage. They have seen the bustling city of Moscow from a taxi cab and an airplane. They have surveyed the sidewalks and wonders from Walt Disney World to Chicago, Illinois. They have camped and tramped through Kentucky, Tennessee and northern Michigan. They have squeezed shut in salty ocean water and opened to bleary focus in chlorine pools. They have blinked away dust in a horse stable and stung with the sweat of soccer practice. They have struggled to make sense of letters and words and numbers and angles. They have danced with the excitement of performing in a school play. They have widened with the thrill of being with your cousins and your aunts and your uncles and Grandparents....that huge family circle that you call your own. They have read signs and maps as we traveled without Dad. They have seen 'Hannah Montana' way too many times in one sitting. They have rolled in embarassment when your Mom insists on a kiss or a hug in your estimation of a 'public place'. We have laughed at those pictures where your eyes are shut in the residue of a huge smile. "Open your eyes, for crying out loud!" I have to say with a laugh as I try for a retake.

And do you know what I like best about those 'Chinese eyes' of yours?

Those eyes never ever fail to see anything but the best in other people. They never ever fail to see a challenge and to set sights on achieving it. They never ever fail to soften when you encounter a puppy....or a horse....or a turtle in the road...or a person in need of comfort or help. They never ever fail to sparkle with life and light when something funny crosses your path. They never, ever fail to thrill me when I look into your beautiful face and realize that you belong to me.

'Chinese eyes' are my very favorites...and don't you ever forget that.
I love you, kiddo...and don't you ever forget that either.

Tigers, Tunnels and French Fries

It was an exhibition soccer game that was to be played in Windsor, Ontario prior to a Border Stars professional soccer game. My son was invited to play. It would be a nice family type Saturday afternoon activity. We dutifully waited in line at the Ambassador Bridge in Detroit with two passports and copies of two sets of adoption papers. It was what we used a month and a half ago with no problem. The Canadian border guard questioned the adoption paperwork but let us through without a problem. Coming back into the US several hours later was stickier. We were told not to have the copies, but to carry the originals...which are safely tucked away in a locked, fire proof box at home. Whew. What 9/11 has wrought! But it isn't the first time we have run afoul at the border...

Seven years ago I happened upon a deal for professional baseball game tickets. It was a low, low price for a Kids' Day game that looked interesting. Lots of perks to bring families tot he stadium. My children were seven and almost six at the time. The almost six year old had only been in our home for seven months and was still learning to speak English. The problem was that you had to buy the tickets at the box office and not at one of the more readily available suburban ticket outlets. Sooo....we made a Saturday morning trip of it. We drove into Detroit, found the new Tiger Stadium, played around at the new front gates for a minutes and bought our tickets for a game to be played in another week. Then I had this brilliant idea to take our kids to Canada for lunch. My husband wasn't too keen on the idea. We didn't have a lot of cash on hand but I told him there was a McDonald's just through the tunnel to Canada. It was just the idea of eating in another country, for pete's sake. How often do we have the opportunity to experience that? Reluctant at first, his enthusiasm grew as we journeyed through the tunnel to Canada and he could see how awed our kids were. We were actually driving under the Detroit River!

On my previous trips to Canada I had been with a friend who knew the ins and outs of Windsor. There was an awesome Italian bakery we liked to visit. We would stop at the border, state our country of birth and our reasons for being in Windsor and travel on through. No big deal. There were similar scenarios occasionally during my childhood when we would plan a day of Canadian shopping. Name, country of birth, reason for being there, travel on. Heh. That was before we needed to state Korea and Russia as orgins of birth.

This time at the border we were asked where we were born and duly stated, Michigan, North Carolina, Korea and Russia. The border guard in the drive through booth's brows puckered. She peeked in our car. Did we have our adoption paperwork? No. Why not? Didn't know we needed to carry it. Over to the side, please. My husband looked at me with a certain degree of dismay. We pulled our car over and were met by another of the border's personnel and were led into an office. My seven year old picked up on his dad's very real fear and clung to his pants so tightly my husband had difficulty walking. I was dealing with the newly arrived almost six year old who was bouncing and skipping, all the time singsonging probably the only English multi word phrase she knew well at that time - which was "I have to go potty!" I was also trying very hard to hold in the giggles. My husband was turning very real shades of green and red. Emabarassment or fear? I tend to go with the latter...and that was why it was so funny at the time.

There we stood in front of the big, bad border guard in Windsor, Ontario. My husband was fumbling with his wallet, asked me for my driver's license, which of course I had left in the car and had to retrieve....all the while trying to rein in the 'I have to go potty' culprit whose curiousity in everything had piqued. The seven year old still clung to his dad's pants and peeked around at the big, bad border guard with eyes as wide as an Asian child's will go. I was giggling. My husband's face had gone from green to red and was now bordering purple. The big bad border guard glared at us. He looked at my bouncing almost six year old, still singsonging 'I have to go potty' and oblivious to everything as she checked out posters and standing ash trays and magazines. Then he glared at my seven year old and barked suddenly, "Who are these people?"

Now a reasonable child have answered 'My Mom and Dad'. My seven year old clinging to the pants of his fear dripping Dad responded with our actual names - people who could have been just about anyone taking them out of the country. I couldn't hold it in any more. The whole situation was so bizarre. I grabbed the sing songing almost six year old by the back of her tee shirt and dragged her closer. My gaze went from my wide eyed seven year old who was very proud to have answered the question correctly to my now absolutely purple husband and I chortled. I laughed out loud and then met the gaze of the big bad border guard who actually had the 'twinkle in his eye' that you always read about. Hee hee. He glared at me again and told me to keep a copy of our adoption paperwork in the glove compartment from now on. I nodded and grabbed the hand of my purple hued husband with the seven year old now happily bouncing along side of him having solved the problem with his answer to the big bad border guard. I dragged the almost six year old - who still had to go potty - and we got in our car.

My husband was all for skedaddling out of Canada immediately and was not happy when I insisted that we continue the half block to McDonalds. He ordered hamburgers and french fries and drinks while I took the almost six year old to the potty....at last. When I came back the seven year old was swinging his legs in the booth and declaring that he liked 'their' fries better and showing off the 'really cool' Canadian money they had gotten as change. We ate and headed back to the tunnel. My husband stopped at the border's tax exempt shop to exchange the Canadian money for American and let the kids buy a small souvenir of Canada...an oversized pencil for him and a little truck for her. We had been in Canada for all of 45 minutes.

Soooo....after this last border encounter, we have finally gotten the message, I think. We are going to apply for passports.

Oh, and we did go to the baseball game a week later where a very happy almost six year old was crushed. She thought she was going to see actual TIGERS play baseball....not a team called 'Tigers'. But that is another story!