We go to Liliha Bakery

Last weekend was Maia's first class in her new soccer class and in her new swimming class at the Y, and between the two classes, we went to Liliha Bakery for lunch.



Liliha Bakery is an institution. It has a crowded little lunch counter, like the old dinners in New York, that serves the best pancakes ever.



It happened to be the Bakery's 47 anniversary.



I has a shortstack, of course.

On the way there, I asked Maia if she had fun in her new soccer class. She said, "Yes, I did. Nobody saw my ear." She's taken to wearing headbands in the last few days to hide the ear.



In the swimming class, she was oblivious to the ear. It's come up again because of the new children at the new school. One of her old classmates is there, and she said that he teased her about it one day.



When we got home, we took a walk. We live on a pretty street, and Maia likes for me to go on walks with her. We look for dogs because she loves dogs.


In the backyard in June, we talked about orphanages. I told her that that was where she was living when we went to Kazakhstan to get her when she was two. That an orphanage was a place where children who didn't have parents lived. Today, I talked about adoption. "Do you know what that is?" I asked her. She shook her head. "Well, it's when you have two sets of parents. Your first parents. Your birth parents. And Mommy and Daddy. Your adoptive parents."



I don't think any of it sunk in. I'm probably doing this all wrong, but I don't know how to do it except to just plow into it. Adoption, a missing ear--it's a lot to ask a little girl to put together.

The picture above was from a walk more than three years ago on the grounds of the orphanage in Shymkent.

John, Sunday, August 20, 2007