Inconspicuous Family

During the adoption wait, I saw a lot of emphasis placed on families preparing themselves to be a "conspicuous family" after adoption. I took training courses and read books so that I could start getting ready to respond to questions we might face down the line. I heard so many stories about babies drawing huge crowds of curious onlookers in China and wondered how I would handle that spotlight. None of that happened with us, really. Not in China, and not at home. It could be that I just don't notice the attention - maybe it's just not overt enough. Or maybe he's just so devastatingly adorable, they don't even notice me! Today as I was shopping in the produce section, with WeiJ happily bonking his new balloon on his head, it struck me how much we just blended in and I must look just like any of these other moms out for an afternoon of shopping with her toddler. He gets the "he's so cute" comments of course, but I don't notice anyone trying to figure us out. Maybe we'll stand out more as he gets older -- who knows. For now, I have to admit it's kind of nice to think that we (he) won't have to constantly be explaining things to nosy nellies. It will be up to WeiJ how much of his story he wants to share with people. Until then we can just be another inconspicuous family, and that's fine by me.

Oh, and about that balloon at the store - the greeter at the door was a nice older man who chased us down in the produce department to give WeiJ a balloon with a sucker attached as a weight. So nice! I thought I'd have to make a mad dash through the store but that balloon kept him entertained virtually the whole time...a life saver! While we were waiting to check out, I saw him flailing his legs and doing crazy motions with his hands. I turned around to see what he was seeing behind me -- a woman with a half dozen balloons! I thought he was going to lose his mind, he was so excited. I looked at his hands again and realized he was doing his "twinkle twinkle" motions so I looked at the balloons again. Sure enough, on that top balloon there were a few little stars in the design. I wonder what other things he always notices and wished he had a word or a sign for?

I'm starting to wonder if he doesn't have some sort of photographic memory or something. Today on the way to the store, we passed by the ice cream place we stopped at a couple weeks ago after his doctor's appointment. We went once. Remember that flailing over the balloons in the checkout line? Same thing when we passed that store! Then when we stopped at Blockbuster, he pointed at the Indiana Jones poster and then pointed to his own head to get me to notice the hat in the picture. A few minutes later I walked past the shelf with that movie and WeiJ is frantically leaning out of my arms and pointing at the movie, his head, and back at the movie. Maybe that's what he wanted to be for Halloween and I just missed it?!?

Then there are two things I'm chalking up to coincidence today because they just can't have really been anything more that coincidence. Just can't be. First one was when we pulled into the Blockbuster parking lot, I could almost swear he said his word for block. Nahhhh, no way. Then the second one was when we were stacking blocks on the floor. I was counting them out loud as he stacked them - the doctor asked if he could do 3 or more, so I was curious how far he'd get - and after he did his 5th, he was putting on the next one and said ssssss. SURELY he is not counting!! If he keeps this up, we're going to be conspicuous all right. Just for a very different reason!