Friday, January 23, 2009

Letting Me Go/My Two China Mothers

Zoe and Maya wanted to do some arts and crafts after school today, but couldn't do their usual cutting-paper projects (they LOVE to cut paper, evidenced by the tons of teeny-tiny paper pieces littering the entire house!) because Zoe is grounded from scissors (she cut her sister's dress with scissors this week, a kind of on-purpose/accident -- they were supposed to be picking up in the family room, and Maya wasn't working hard enough to satisfy Zoe (Maya NEVER works hard enough -- personal energy conservation is her creed!), so Zoe threatened to cut her dress if she didn't clean. She poised them threateningly with Maya's hem between the blades. . . . and the predictable happened! Oh, and then she LIED about it! Hence, the grounding!)

So we took a crack at the CAL/G2 Girls postcard project, since we wouldn't be using any implement more dangerous than a pencil! We're just at the "sloppy copy" stage, but here's what they've written so far, having chosen the "Love Letters to My Mothers" topic:

Letting Me Go by Zoe:

This is a picture of my birth parents letting me go. I wonder about you and think about how much fun I could've had if you didn't let me go. I'm sorry if I'm hurting your feelings by saying I wish you didn't let me go. I hope you are wondering that, too.

I enjoy TX. I wish that you could come to TX and stay with me for a while.

Your daughter, Zoe

P.S. I (heart) U!


Zoe's writing strikes me as a little angry -- she's sorry she hurts their feelings when she says I wish you didn't let me go, which seems to show that she knows it SHOULD hurt their feelings. Saying that someone did something wrong/bad is what hurts people's feelings. . . . And she added the P.S. I love you after she heard Maya "sign" her card "Love, Maya."

And Xiaoli's visit really has made her wonder if other Chinese people -- including her birth parents -- could come stay with us a while in Texas.

To My China Mothers by Maya:

Thank you Birth Mother for carrying me in your tummy and giving me my black hair and my Chinese eyes and my talents. I wish you didn't let me go.

Thank you Foster Mother for taking care of me so well. I'm glad I got to see you again when I was 3. Even if I didn't remember you.

That's all.

Love, Maya

Maya's postcard is influenced by working on her "My China Workbook," with the pages about looking like birth parents and inheriting certain things from them. And "I whish you didn't let me go" is straight Zoe!

Maya dictated the note to me, and is now laboriously copying it in her own handwriting. I expect that the note will get shorter as we go along (see above, re: personal energy conservation!).

Is anyone else planning to do the project?

2 comments:

Jeff and Madeline said...

Yes, thanks for posting about it.

Anonymous said...

It is interesting to see what they are thinking. I told my daughter about a researcher who is working on a research project from her home city, and that we would be getting a video and a book with pictures of the city and the orphanage. She asked "will he see my mother and father? Will he send us pictures of them?" She doesn't understand at all that we have no idea where to find them, although I've explained it to her several times. And I wonder what she is thinking when she refers to her mother and father in China, whether she feels like she is just marking time with me until her mother and father come to get her. Or whether she recognizes any dichotomy in the fact that she mentions and thinks about her mother and father, yet has a mother here. I guess she can have two mothers without struggling about it, at least for now.