The Whole Catastrophe

Things are simmering down now (or are they?), Ellie is often happy, and periodically sad or more frequently angry. Ellie has Lisa and I playing Good Cop/ Bad Cop, but Lisa doesn't like playing the heavy role all the time (it's easy being sugardaddy). Today we split from the others in the group to try to bond better with Ellie by ourselves. The others went to some gardens that were supposed to be beautiful (so many incredibly beautiful things here, we do regret missing it).

Yesterday we went to the hotel pool and Ellie was very excited, she ran right for the water and went right in! Her friend Faith had been quite hesitant, so I thought: Ellie is a swimmer!!! Turns out, she sank like a rock! We are seeing quite often that she is pretty fearless, and kind of a daredevil. It is pretty common here for kids to do stuff that would have us arrested for child endangerment in the States. Yesterday we went to a beautiful lake park (I want an exact copy back home) that had children's amusement rides & playgrounds. The playground equipment was 1950 vintage; lots of swings that had joints that could pinch fingers, everything was heavily painted iron. I looked on the ground for knocked out teeth & finger parts, but there were people there that were constantly sweeping things up. It reminds me of my sister's observation of Mexico: "They must not have any attornies here!"

We may need to contact Dobson about taking it up a notch; maybe he could write "The Strong Willed Chinese Adopted Girl Child". We read a stack of books before we left, but Ellie has a six year history, and no instruction manual. Plus, we get to figure it all out in Mandarin. You gotta laugh! Since I was a boy, I knew my Dad loved the movie "Zorba the Greek". In the movie, a Brit who is getting to know Zorba asks if he was ever married. He says yes, he had it all: the house, the wife, the kids, "the whole catastrophe!" Interesting, how you can be all so happy and worried and sad all in the middle of a catastrophe.