Warning some material is PG 13

Amazon had a great deal on Guitar Hero some time back and so I bought it. When I bought our Wii, I explained to Grace that it was MINE, so she would have to earn time to play on it. That has worked out pretty well.

Well when Guitar Hero arrived, and I was making her "work" for her time to play, I told her I had to do something to "earn" Guitar Hero.

She decided today that I had earned it so while they are putting the stickers on "my" reward, I am going to update about some of what has happened today.

First off as a Mom, I have learned that a primary purpose of children must surely be to "check" your ego. At breakfast they were commenting on the sandwiches I made for the trip to the zoo. Somehow all of our conversations take a long introduction, so I sat patiently waiting for them to tell me how delicious they were. Instead, they told me they were gummy and the bread and meat stuck to the tops of their mouths!

For lunch I made sliders, you know the little hamburgers. This time I am thinking how brilliant of me to fix our lunch for about $5 when an order of sliders anywhere else is at least $10 x 3, think of the money I saved.

I made too many (and they are not something you can have on a soft diet after all) so after they each ate 2, they asked if they had to eat any more because they were very dry and salty. You will probably not want me to prepare sliders for you since they did not like theirs and I had to upchuck mine!

Annabel and I started talking at the table, where all really good conversations start in this house. She told me she can't wait to be bigger so she can have a boyfriend, because she wanted to kiss him.

This is an ongoing conversation and since I really was not sure how to kiss a boy until I was 49, then I have not known exactly how to handle this topic.

But this time she went on to say she had already kissed her boyfriend, who is the smallest kid in the class.

I told her that kissing boys is just the beginning and can lead to having babies.

She said that is exactly what she wants to do.

I know I was going to extremes, but since it is a constant in our conversations, I decided I needed to be pretty frank with the discussion.

She said she wants to have a boyfriend and kiss him and if she has a baby, then she will just kill it.

Insert shocked expression here.

I said we don't kill babies here.

She said, she would get her boyfriend to kill it.

Again shocked expression.

Trying to recover quickly with a response.

Annabel, if you kill a baby here, they will put you in prison for the rest of your life.

That's ok with her, she just wanted to get to have a boyfriend, kiss him, and have a baby.

She has told me before how her friend in China in the group home got pregnant by going to bed with a boy. She wasn't sure what they did with the baby.

This whole conversation makes me know that we are going to have many more talks about the value of life. The people in China have been in EXTREME situations and even Amy Tan writes about the disposability of a human life there. If you have read the book, "The Lost Daughters of China", the author plainly talks about the way babies have been "disposed" of to avoid facing the penalties of the law. I have no idea if it is true. But I have never lived in a communist country where the law is STRICTLY enforced and the law only allows one child per family. For a family to have a daughter, the parents know they will face their old age in even more impoverished conditions than when they are able to work for a living, because their daughter will be responsible for her husband's parents. She cannot take care of her own parents. There is no social security, 401Ks, mutual funds, or retirement accounts.

I know Annabel tells some tall tales and loves to joke, but since she has brought this up so many times I know I can't ignore it. But today of course we went further with the conversation than usual.

She recently told how they had a cow when they lived in China, which is probably NOT true, and how she went to the zoo one time and saw a panda and some dogs. Gillian and Grace thought she was kidding, but the zoo we visited in China did have dogs and chickens!

This afternoon when I checked the mail box, there was a letter from China.

She had written a letter almost as soon as we got home from China and worked on it until around Christmas, when we finally got Ms. Wu to help us address it to Annabel's foster family. I was so glad to have Ms. Wu be able to interpret for me and know she was not begging to go back to China.

I had just commented to Marcie that I was surprised they had not answered her.

Today it arrived.

I fretted over whether I should have Ms. Wu translate it for me before giving it to her. Dad and I decided maybe this would be the best.

Mom and Grace thought she needed to have it.

Grace was afraid she would get mad if she knew I kept if from her, which she would, but Mom felt like Annabel is secure enough here now to read the letter and be ok with it.

I am glad Dad and I got overruled.

I put it back in the mailbox and then sent her to check the mail.

She was so excited that she got a letter!

She wanted to duck into our house, but Poppa told her to bring it to their porch and read it to us.

She always wants to please Dad, so she sat down and started reading.

She knew her foster sister had written it because her foster mother does not know how to do that kind of writing and her foster father does not know how to write.

I am SO glad it was the sister who wrote.

She kept it light and funny from what Annabel told us.

She said her foster brother wants to grow up and take a plane and come find her so they can play together. They hoped she was being treated well and missed her. Most of this Grace translated for me and I was THRILLED that Grace could read that much in Chinese!

Annabel was very happy to have gotten the letter and know she was not forgotten. Her primary purpose in her letter, was to tell her foster father she loved him. Ms. Wu said from what she understood that Annabel had never been able to tell him that while there.

Somehow it does not seem right for an 11 year old to have this many life experiences. When I am with all 4 girls, I worry about the stress all 4 have already endured, so much so in comparison to my own "Father Knows Best" childhood. Prayers are always appreciated, for all of us.