I take pictures on Thanksgiving Day

I had to leave the house today in order to take my toxic preoccupation with problems in the office away from Kristina and Maia. I have managed to put myself into an impossible situation at work--it eats at me on a moment-to-moment basis, but it will take some months for this problem to unwind.

Yet, as I sit in my office, now, some hours distant from the feelings of oppression, anger--rage, in truth--that drove me away from my family this morning, I know that this is the wrong thing to be doing, that there are things for which I should be thankful and for which I need to put myself in a thankful frame of mind. The person I am dealing with--as I have told myself many times--is not worth all of this trouble.

I need to focus my attention on where it belongs: the people I love and who love me. And so, for the rest of this day, I shall take pictures.

Goodbye, Office. I'm going home. (I will supplement this as I take the pictures.)

The first picture, at the top of this post, was Maia where I found her when I got home. She had built a little structure for herself out of her old stroller, two hassocks, and a kitchen table chair with two of my shirts on it. This was a cage for Charlie (she was Charlie, a dog), after the cage for Tracy that my sister-in-law puts up for their dog in their kitchen.



"Woof, woof," she said. Children are such builders and pretenders.

Kristina was making brownies. Charlie got out of her pen and pounced on her.



"You have to say, 'No, Charlie, go back, Charlie, go back,'" Maia instructed Kristina.

And so Kristina did.


And Maia/Charlie dutifully went back to her pen.



"Wait a minute," I said. "Maia, you and I have to figure out we're going to bring to dinner tonight."



We're having dinner at my sister-in-law's house. My thought was that Maia and I should contribute something ourselves to this feast and not just go to eat. I wanted her to participate in this personally.

Kristina demurred, but I pressed on: "What do you want to bring, Sweetness?"

"I want....I want to bring a Christmas tree for Mommy," Maia announced. There was larceny hidden in this sweetness--she knows doggone well that Christmas means presents, and that a Christmas tree would kick everything into high gear.

"Auntie Pam got us a Christmas tree, Maia," I said. "We're going to pick it up next Friday." Auntie Pam is a special client, who has become close to our family and does things for us from time to time. Like get us Christmas trees.

"Oh, no," Kristina said. "Maia, we should call Auntie Pam to thank her," she said.

"What's the number," Maia said, going off to get the phone. She likes making calls.



"It's in my cell," Kristina said. So she retrieved her cell, and called it out to Maia, who dialed it in.



Alas, we just got Auntie Pam's recording. We coached Maia to say hello and Happy Thanksgiving, which she did.



Kristina was now on a roll with the telephones, though. "We should call Grandma," she announced.

"I wanna call Grandma," Maia said.

So we called Grandma, only Grandma was at Uncle Mark and Auntie Linda's house, so it was Auntie we talked to first.



It's amazing how much Maia has matured over the last few months. You can see it when she does something like talk on the phone.



She explained that Mommy was cooking, Daddy was taking pictures, and that we were going to Auntie Kalei's for dinner.

"What's Auntie Kalei's dog's name?" she wanted to know.



"Tracy," I told her.



I know they were all duly impressed with her. I have been, too, but no more than by her kindergarten teacher's saying that she was, "average," at the parent-teacher meetings in October. For what Maia has had to overcome and deal with at this point, "average," to me, is exceptional.

Auntie Pam called next, to thank Maia for her call.



And then we had a light lunch so as not to spoil our appetites for this evening.



Truly, a lot to be thankful for. Maia and I didn't get the cookies made (it's what we had decided to bring between the two calls), but we'll all survive that. I'm glad I went home.

John, Thursday, November 22, 2007 (Thanksgiving day)

(These are notes from Tuesday, October 30, 2007)

Watching TV on the bed last night (after dinner, we often do that), I was feeling remorseful about my loss of patience with her from time to time in the last few weeks. Things have been very difficult at work.

"I try to be a good Daddy," I told her, "but I know I don't always succeed."

She thought about this. Then she said, "Are you being a good Daddy?"

There's a certain joking good humor about M. that is at the core of who she is.

"Yes," I said.

She thought somemore. "I will cover you," she announced. There was clean laundry on the bed that hadn't been folded yet, and she began to use pieces of that to blanket me. She's a great improvisor as I guess all children are. Soon I was covered, neck to toe, in T-shirts, socks, jeans, and other bits of clothing.

"Are you comfortable, Daddy?" she wanted to know.

"Yes," I said.

In the coming years, I know that there will be forces that will work on us and seek to separate us--issues made into political ones having to do with her separation from her birth parents, for whatever reasons they had, and our adoption of her. I hope we are always able to cycle back to moments like this--impromptu stagings of forgiveness and acceptance.

The pic is from a restaurant about a week before this. I had taken them out to make amends for my distraction, and we had had a good time.

John, November 12, 2007