My little art critic is going to make an excellent grad student. She knows how to do that “nod emphatically and pretend you understand” thing that I didn’t learn how to do until my late 20’s. Yesterday, for example, I was holding her in the courtyard, and she was examining a mole on my shoulder. I mentioned it to my neighbor, who said her daughter also had quite an interest in moles, and that she thought perhaps she had a future as a dermatologist. I nodded and laughed. My neighbor nodded and laughed. Liana nodded and laughed.

Now she is a smart kid, but I am pretty darn sure she didn’t get that particular piece of humor.

I didn’t learn how to bluff until grad school myself. It was in Professor Schneider’s seminar, entitled “Military Intervention in the Political Process.” Prof Schneider knew everything about everything about everything, and would ramble on about the weather during a particular battle 700 years ago, and how that weather that effected the harvest of a particular crop which ended up ultimately meaning the food supplies blah blah blah… and I was always lost. Literally lost in time and space. Sometimes I had no idea where or when the situation he was describing was taking place.

Some really smart lady sat right next to the Prof, and nodded emphatically when he went off on his anecdotes, and always had something interesting and intelligent to say. At a certain point I befriended her, and she told me the secret. Nod emphatically, smile, pick up on one aspect of what he is saying, and then compare it to something you know something about. Wow. Honestly, that had never occurred to me.

But Liana does that already, at 14 months. I didn’t learn it until my late 20’s!!!. She nods, seems to understand, and then directs your attention to an interesting piece of art or her new sippy cup or a squeaky toy. Nod. Smile. Redirect. Wow.

In Professor Schneider’s class we had to pick one country and one military intervention in that country’s political process to do as a semester-long project for the course, culminating in a paper and oral presentation. We could pick any country in the world, and any point in history. I picked Guatemala, 1954. I knew a lot about the country, a lot about the coup, a lot about how Guatemala had been the victim of cold war politics, and figured I could share a bit of my personal experiences in Guatemala during the aftermath of that military intervention, since the Prof clearly enjoyed obscure details. As I was doing research for the project, I was shocked, thrown to the floor shocked, to find that my professor had LITERALLY written the book “Communism in Guatemala, 1944-1954.” Oh my.

After many sleepless nights, tears, anxiety beyond description, I approached the Professor on the fact that I had proposed a topic, and was preparing an extensive project, which directly contradicted the premise in his very first book, written in 1959. He smirked, and said he wondered if I was going to run across his work. He said he had been a young man, with his first job at the pentagon, and that he had been commissioned to write the book, which he did enthusiastically, relying on sources provided to him primarily by his employer. He went on to say that the book was a bit of an embarrassment to him now.

So you see princess… bluffing isn’t always the best strategy. Nor is following someone else’s lead. Ask questions. Even hard ones. What do you think?

BTW- that really smart lady in my Military Intervention in the Political Process class became my really good friend Carol, soon to be Liana’s Auntie Carol. Carol was there for me when my mom died. Carol’s mom is facing a very aggressive cancer right now, and I’m not there for her. But Carol, I’m thinking about you every day. Write me when you get a chance, ok?

Liana is finding it really hard to wait for this email from the US Embassy. She doesn't know what to do with herself. Should she chew on her book? Count to five? Throw her teething ring on the floor? Offer her shoe to strangers walking by?

Oh my. Decisions to make. And soon.

In the next couple of days I will get an email from the US Embassy. It will probably be my Pink Appointment, giving me a date to show up at the Embassy with Liana to apply for her visa. The date will probably be about a week away. It is possible that the email will be a dreaded I-72, which means more delays. But it will probably be Pink.

Ok. Count the dates on your fingers. At this point it is pretty probable that my Pink appointment will be before the Christmas break. And then Liana’s visa will be issued before the break. But really really close.

So what do I do? Do I scramble to travel to NYC with the holiday travelers? And then, do I arrive in frigid NY days before Christmas… with a million things to do? I bought her a winter coat with a hat before I left, but she needs a coat with a hood because she refused to wear hats. No mittens or scarf or boots. I don’t even really have any warm clothes for her.

And there are lots of errands to run. I need to get one of those gate things to put on my bed, where she will sleep for a while. I need gates for doors too. I need to get one of those exosaucer things to put her in before she will even let me unpack. She NEEDS stacking cups. And a kids’ make-believe cell phone. She is always trying to steal people’s cell phones. And I need a food processor. And lots and lots of groceries. And I need a thing to bathe her in…. maybe one of the blow-up duckies or something… but I can’t bathe her until I get something. And I need soft towels for her. And I have to get her one of those pushy toys that kids who are just learning to walk have. I have lots of errands to run…lots of shopping to do in different places. Would have to get the warm clothes for her first. And I am thinking of doing all of this in the madness of Christmas shoppers?

Aunt Joanie and Celia have invited me to go to Virginia for Christmas, but there is no way that is happening. We are just going to arrive home, repack, and hit the airport again? That makes no sense.

I could spend the holidays here. It is warm, and nice. We could arrive home between Christmas and New Years, and do all of our shopping in relative calm. It might be nice to spend the Solstice here… there must be ruins close by that do fun things at the Solstices.. with the light shining through and hitting some special piece of art for the Solstice. The Mayans were into that sort of thing.

But there is a part of me that wants to just be home. And another part of me that cannot believe that after more than a year in this process, that she is coming home in the dead of winter.

Liana LOVES to go out. I love going out and running neighborhood errands, and she is going to love Jackson Heights. But during the cold of winter I become a hermit. And she has never known the cold. One more week, or two, of running neighborhood errands in the warmth of the sun of Antigua.

And then there is Lago Atitlan. Is it possible that I am only a couple of hours away from the most beautiful lake on planet earth, a place that I have loved and visited over and over again for two decades…is it possible that we are so close, and that I am not going there? I could go to the lake for the Solstice and Christmas. It would be hard to get around. Harder than the cobblestone streets of Antigua…. Cobblestone or dirt streets, straight up the side of three volcanoes. Nothing is flat. And getting in and out of little boats to get from village to village. It would be hard with Liana. But I am so close. It seems a shame not to go.

So where do we go? What do we do?

Oh my!!!!!! The final DNA test results are being forwarded to the US Embassy, and the results are 99.9%!!!!

Many of you know the dreadful DNA drama that I went through with Liana. I will post about it at some point in the future. But I was really really nervous that there would be problems with this round of DNA testing.

After the US Embassy reviews the DNA and everything else, they will either issue me my PINK appointment, or will ask for more clarification. If they do not ask for additional clarification or paperwork, my appoinment could be next week!!!!

Well, Liana might enjoy the tortillas and mole poblano (and the artwork!) at Frida’s restaurant, but mom is not delighted with the scam they pulled on my bill. I asked for the enchiladas with mole poblano, with cheese instead of chicken. As a big fan of mole, I’ve made that very specific request more times than you can imagine. When I lived in Mexico, I probably ate mole in a restaurant once a week, with cheese enchiladas. Even in NYC, I seek out mole. But Frida’s has a special policy. They charged me the regular price for the enchiladas, and then charged me again for the cheese, making my enchiladas end up costing more than anything else on the menu. Making the enchiladas, in fact, cost much more than I would pay for them in NYC!!!!!

I argued over the check, to several staff members, each of whom ended up disappearing, as if they intended to go off and resolve the issue. Liana was in the stroller, tired, and cranky and ready to go. The last fellow said that the cheese was extra. Period. I said that I wanted a rebate for not having meat then. He said they could not do that.

I paid the amount on the bill. Down to the last centavo of a quetzal. Told everyone on the way out to examine their bills carefully, using words like scam and trampa, depending on the language spoken. And walked out.

You know, I don’t bargain with street vendors, hoping to save $3 on a weaving that took someone a week to complete. In fact I feel really good about spending my money here and supporting the local economy. I don’t mind overpaying at the corner store to avoid the walk over to the chaotic bodegona. (Hey, I overpay at corner stores in NY too.) I over-tip tuc tuc drivers who struggle to get Liana's stroller folded and into their little vehicle. But I really really really resent getting ripped off at a very successful (and good) restaurant.

Shame on them.

Well during breakfast, 4 year old Lily announced that a parade was coming. I mean, it is a festive Sunday in the park, with balloons and soap bubbles and cotton candy and ladies in high heels, but a parade? Sure enough. The kid knew the signs.

It is the annual Bodegona Start of the Holiday Season Parade or some such thing. And such a tacky event cannot be described. The Bodegona is the very large supermarket place that is also sort of like, I guess, a Walmart? So marching bands were flanked by children dressed as laundry detergent and stick-it notes. Reindeer and cotton snow and kids in red Santa hats graced the passing floats. And at the end, deer Santa himself.

I’ve got to tell you, I must be pms’ing, because I actually got all gushy about Liana’s first Santa. Now the context was bizarre. And I did have quite a little debate with Celia a while back about the fact that I have no intentions of lying to Liana and telling her that there is a man who comes down chimneys and leaves nice presents for rich kids, and very little for poor kids. I will tell her that a long long time ago there was a nice man named Nicholas, who gave presents to the poor, and we celebrate his goodness by giving presents to each other, and people dress up like him to honor him.

But today, as a man in a white beard and ridiculously inappropriate red outfit rode by on a bed of cotton past the palm trees, I got sort of warm and fuzzy. Who knew?

The kids loved the parade, but I had to make my way through the crowd to find my favorite bathroom, because Liana was in desperate need of a diaper change. Afterwards we had planned to go hang out with the kids at a local hostel where they had advertised that they were showing the movie Shrek. It was a nice place. Dorm sleeping for backpackers, and $8 a night got you a clean bed, breakfast, free beer, and a really nice garden area with hammocks and high speed internet and a TV. Sadly, it appears that the Shrek video had disappeared, and so there was no show for the kids. But we played on the hammocks and talked to the travelers and I thought about the many times I had stayed in places like this, sharing stories with the adventurers… the real travelers who are wandering from one obscure place to another.

Well the princess hasn’t been eating much, so when she woke up hungry at 2:00 AM I made her a fresh bottle. Then she woke up at 5:00. In her cute mode.

I cannot even begin to describe how truly cute her cute mode is. Especially when she just wakes up. So she was crawling around the bed, moving her hands and legs really really really fast and burying her face in the mattress and chanting bababababababababab, and then triumphantly lifting her head and arms in the air and exclaiming GAH!, followed by claps and giggles. Sometimes the fast-crawls would end with her landing on top of me, and either putting her head on my belly, or jumping on top of me. GAH! This was followed by standing on her own (an action which she knows will result in praise and tickles from me) and lots of clapping before the inevitable fall, which of course is followed by giggles and more tickles.

Now honestly I would have preferred to be sleeping at 5:00 AM. At 2:00 as well, for that matter. But hunger and cuteness won over. We went back to sleep around 6:00 I think, and then didn’t wake up until about 9:30.

Just get them on a schedule, everyone tells me.

Uh huh.

By the way. My neighbor noticed that Liana is getting 2, maybe 3 back molars. Before getting the teeth in between. Hmmmm. It is probably rather painful. And probably the new teeth are contributing to her lack of interest in food, and perhaps the odd sleep schedule.

Oddly, we had one very exciting milestone today. We had a FUN bath. A bath with minimal tears going in, and lots of giggles and fun inside the tub! You have no idea how stressful bathing has been. Irene remembers, from the visit trip. Screams indicating unspeakable torture. Flailing. Indignation.
We have started watching Rubber Ducky on YouTube daily, and playing with her rubber ducky and signing and whatnot. Has it helped? Who knows. Today, the bath was fun! May future baths be this delightful!

So the princess and I went over to visit the museums at the Hotel Santo Domingo today, and then to hang out in the bar (drinking juice and hot chocolate) and taking advantage of their padded carpeting and low tables for walking practice.Liana LOVES art galleries. We spent about two hours walking around and looking at paintings and sculptures. She would get excited when we walked into a new room, and start pointing here and there. We would stop and examine certain pieces, sometimes spending minutes on a single painting or statue. She is 14 months old. Oh, I wish my parents were alive. They both so loved galleries, and I know that I was a regular gallery-go-er by 2 or 3. I don’t even know how young I started. But I cannot believe how much this little girl loves to look at art! As I’ve mentioned before, she is mostly drawn to images of people, animals or fruit. But today she enjoyed some rather abstract paintings as well. And she continues to LOVE wooden sculpture. Which is good, since mom has lots of wood at home.I cannot wait to share my dad’s art with her. I have a sketch that he did of me when I was just a few months old, hanging in Liana’s room. I am already imagining her pointing at it excitedly, examining it with a steady gaze, and then looking to me to see if my eyes are still on it as well. The San Miguel de Allende pieces I have in my living room might be too difficult for her to understand, but we will see. The images are so much like Antigua, they might appeal to her on a different level.I hope she likes the other things I have on her wall in her room… the textile piece from Peru with llamas and pretty people running around… the animal images, the mobile. Now that I know her tastes, I look forward to taking her shopping and letting her pick out more exciting things for her walls.Hey moms and dads out there…. Isn’t this fascination with art at such a young age a little unusual? I mean, gazing intently at a given piece for minutes, and then moving on to the next? Am I so taken with this amazing little person that I am in awe of things that she does that every kid just does? Or is there really something a little special about this fascination? Here in the apartment, there are certain pieces that we look at several times a day. She gets real pleasure examinging one particular embroidery over and over... and there is a face carved on a bench outside that she cannot get enough of.Unlike my dad, I have NO artistic talent. What do I need to be doing to encourage her to not only appreciate, but hopefully to also create art? We tried a marker on paper the other day, with only moderate success. It spent more time in her mouth than on the paper. What are the first media? Thick crayons? She’s way too young for play doh, right? Way too early for textiles, right? What should I be doing here? Her gross motor skills are a bit delayed, as are her verbalizations, (she communicates clearly with gestures) but her fine motor skills are excellent. (She unscrewed the cap to her bottle today and spilled canteloupe juice all over the sidewalk.) However, she is at the age in which everything goes in the mouth, and I am terrified of things that are toxic or that she could choke on. What should I be doing? Give me words of wisdom! Art and music? Well music is a constant presense in our lives, both live performances and my ipod selections, and stuff playing in stores or restaraunts or whatever. But art? I am so out of my element!

While Liana is taking her afternoon nap, I’m usually here at my computer in the next room, about 20 feet away. When she wakes up she lets out an loud, rather anxious vocalization, and I go running into the bedroom, where I am greeted with her amazing big smile, followed by bounces and squeals and just silliness and joy.

Except for today.

At a certain point I went in, just to check on her. She was awake, with her face buried in the mattress, weeping. She had been crying a long time it seems, but silently, like she did the first few days after her foster family dropped her off. She saw me, and continued to cry, but reached out to be held. I cuddled her a bit, but could not interest her in her bottle or toys. She just kept weeping. Her very wet diaper was in desperate need of a change, and she cried inconsolably during the process. I then cuddled her more, but she just buried her face in my shoulder and wept. I pointed at the things that she loves to look at, art, toys, the window. We even went outside to look at flowers. But she was just sad.

I am so glad that I decided to take this time with Liana here in Antigua. This is a hard time for her, even though most of the time she is joyous and wonderful. This is a big transition in her life, leaving the only family she has ever known to be with me. The first few days were really hard, and even the first full week had its challenges. Even now when I think we are all settled in and just being a happy family, it seems that she is still, on many levels, grieving her losses.
Eventually she cheered up, and became herself. She played with the courtyard kids, and later she and I went out to dinner and had lots of fun. She was very silly this evening when I tried to get her to go to sleep, crawling around the bed and rolling, and blowing bubbles on my arms and giggling. But when she is in that adorable mode, it is hard not to tickle her and just give in and play and be silly. When I finally felt her taking those deep, regular breaths that signaled she was really asleep, I crept back out here to the computer. But with a little less confidence now. I depend on her to communicate her needs to me, and she usually does. But this afternoon she wept silently alone, and I was not even there to help.

For a while we were making very clear progress with this whole walking thing. Then we sort of hit a plateau. The new shoes do seem to be helping somewhat. But clearly the princess is going to progress at her own pace, not the pace that mommy sets.

The most exciting accomplishment has been the “squat and pick up” development. At first things fell, and mommy learned how to play fetch. Now the princess can recover objects herself. And mommy’s back is thankful.

I have told Liana that it is my very strong preference that she carry her own luggage through the airport on the trip home. She nods emphatically when we discuss it, but something tells me that mom will be carrying not only Liana’s luggage, but the princess herself through airport checkpoints. I have no idea how we are going to get all of this junk home. I am trying so hard not to buy stuff. But I can’t resist a new book now and then. You know about the shoes. I really need new pants for her… because mostly she crawls and makes the knees of her pretty tights and light colored pants really dirty. A new toy here and there does not seem like too much. I brought all the soft, cute, educational stuff. She seems to really like hard plastic toys. Hmmm. So I got a plastic bucket (fun to put stuff in) and the plastic tea set was a real hit. And then there is the stuff that I really want to bring home… the weavings, embroidery, maybe some wooden items, a mask perhaps. I would love to get her at least one indigenous outfit. Have I told you about the bedspreads? Oh my.

Doesn’t anyone out there want to come spend a tropical holiday here in Guatemala, (having arrived with only one suitcase) and then travel home with us to NY, carrying all of the princess’s goodies? Think about it….

Oh my! I think I just got a whole bunch of new readers, and I have nothing insightful or profound to say today! I guess I’ll just tell you a little bit about courtyard life. I do love my neighbors, most of whom are also adopting moms and kids. The kids have fun playing together. Here are some photos of tea parties and bubbles and even a photo of sweet Sonia, whose mom misses her so much!

Did I tell you that a few nights ago at dinner I met a family from Minnesota who adopted their daughter from Guatemala 22 years ago? The young woman was beautiful, poised and articulate, and flushed with the excitement of having met her birth mother for the first time a few days before. The parents were so happy and proud of their lovely daughter, and the whole family made a hit with the princess Liana, who made them carry her about and practice walking up and down the courtyard and whatnot. The young woman now works as an adoption facilitator with families adopting from Ethiopia. This young woman was adopted in the middle of the civil war, at a time when adoptions from Guatemala were rare. Her parents were returning to Guatemala for the first time since they adopted her, and the young woman was on her second visit. I kept looking at this young woman, and then at Liana, and hoping that my precious daughter will become a woman as smart and wonderful and happy and successful as the daughter of this lovely family.

Yeah, this kid is a magnet. We went out and bought some new shoes this morning (softer, flexible, no slip) in hopes of improving our walking skills. We then went to the park to take the new shoes for a test drive. In no time at all we hade a whole crowd keeping the princess entertained.

I’ve gotten to know quite a few of the women and children who sell stuff in the park. One woman has invited me to visit her village, which is about 8 kilometers away. I’ve asked her how we would get there, and she asked if I had a car, which of course I don’t. She then said that there is a bus. I am a little nervous about taking Liana on the chicken bus, and I also know that the village might be quite a walk from where the bus drops us off. But an invitation like this seems like something I should not turn down. Would it be really obnoxious and ostentatious to take a taxi?

In addition to the street vendors, I have gotten to know a number of the beggars. There is one woman I pass every day. I stop and talk, and she fusses over Liana. She is quite old, and her husband has broken his hip, it seems. She does not speak Spanish very well, and mixes in many indigenous words that I do not understand. But she tells me about her son, who worked in Guatemala City for a while, but now seems to be somewhere else. His wife just had a baby, a boy. He was born healthy. She is uncertain if she should send her injured husband to stay with family somewhere, because she seems unable to care for him. He is heavy, and needs to be lifted. She then talks about Liana and how beautiful she is, and blesses her and blesses me, and tells me about a relative who went to NY, and wishes us wonderful things in our lives together. I was walking down the street lost the other day, looking for a cross street and not paying attention, and I did not see this woman walking towards us. She grabbed me and kissed me, and then put both of her hands on Liana’s head. I am not accustomed to being kissed on the streets of Antigua, so I was quite startled. I am really starting to feel at home in this sweet city/town.
Haha… my boss wrote me this morning with comments on this blog and pictures of Liana, and she said she is concerned that it sounds like I like it here too much. Don’t worry. I really am coming home. I promise.