"Kate NaNa from China"

Kate NaNa and I have been having some interesting conversations lately. As you know, she really struggles with her speech, but she has made some serious progress in the past few months.

For her birthday back in October, she got a Ni Hao, Kai Lan DVD in which Kai Lan and her friends travel to China. (For those of you not schooled in children's programming, Kai Lan is the Chinese version of Dora, except Kai Lan thankfully doesn't yell at you to "say it louder". I have issues with Dora.) Kate loves Kai Lan, and talks about her all the time.

Also back in October, Kate started talking about China. She would ask me, "Why you call me Kate?" I responded, "Kate is your name." She said, "You call me Kate NaNa. Kate NaNa from China."

I shared this story with her teacher, since it happened right before she started school, and asked her to use this name. For about a month, when I picked Kate up from school, we would have the following conversation: "How was school today?" "Good. Mrs.Whoa-Ah, she call me Kate NaNa." And then she would giggle. I would say, "Did you like that?" "Yeah, Kate NaNa from China."

We have always encouraged NaNa to talk about China, but up until now she has been quite limited by her lack of speech. In many ways, it is still hard to understand her. And even when we do understand her words, we aren't sure how much of it is real and how much is imagined. (After all she can be quite the story teller. Tonight she told me a big tale, and when I asked her, "Really?" She laughed, "No, I joking.")

Lately, the stories have been coming more frequently. For example, once she told us that Mimi was with her in China when she was a baby. We don't know if she is retelling the story that Mimi was with us when we went to China and met her, or if she is getting someone in her past confused with Mimi. Mimi recently asked her if her foster mama (China mama) was old like Mimi or young like Mommy, and Kate responded, "Old like Mimi." Frequently she tells me, "I was baby in China."

Today we were sitting around the table, and she says to us, "When I was a baby in China, I had a sister and a mama." Well, that got my attention. I asked, "Was it a little sister, a big sister, or a sister the same size?" "A sister the same size." One of the boys asked if she had a daddy too. "Yes," she replies. But later, she told me that her brothers were there too, referring to Ben and Will. In other words, we have no idea how much of this is real, and how much is simply her desire to have a story. She was only two years old when she left China, but it really is possible that she had a foster sister.

Tonight as she got in bed she told her Daddy that in China, she slept with her foster mama, which is entirely likely. Does she really remember that? I have no idea. Twenty minutes later, she tells me that she had a YeYe in China. I didn't understand what she was saying, and I said, "You had a YiYi in China?" She started laughing hysterically, "No! YeYe in China," and she laughed some more. I repeated, "YeYe"? And then it dawned on me. YeYe is Kai Lan's grandfather on the show. "Do you mean on the show?" "Yes!" she says. Which just leaves me even more confused.

On the one hand, I am glad she is happy to be Chinese. I want her to be proud of her heritage and her birth culture. I also am happy that she wants to talk about it. I always want her to feel like she can talk to us about anything, and China is no exception.

But on the other hand, it makes me sad. Sad that part of her story is missing. We often tell birth and adoption stories in our family, and I wonder if Kate is just telling us these things so that she will have more of a story, like her brothers. But as I said before, what if she really does remember these things?

In truth, we will likely never know. We have few details about her life in China, only speculation. We know from a Western volunteer that Kate was in foster care, but the orphanage denies it for some reason. In other words, we can't ask those questions, and so how can we ever know?

On some level, we have to accept the fact that details are missing, but that doesn't mean I won't treasure these kernels, whether they are real or imagined. She has an amazing story in front of her, that we still haven't seen yet. So as her mama, I have to help her embrace that story. But I will also, at some point, have to help her grieve the missing parts.