January 24, 2013

Culture & imagination

Even before we knew we were going to Kenya, international awareness was an important part of our household. We wanted our children to grow up with eyes and hearts bigger than their immediate surroundings, and we sought to incorporate influences from other countries into our lives in natural ways -- our food, our home, our discussions. Since our kids are still young, that has also meant finding playthings that capture their imagination and spark their curiosity about the world. Some of our recent favorites:

Battat Global Glowball
The kids' uncle gave them this mini globe for Christmas, and it has been a huge hit at our home. The globe lights up and plays tunes and sounds from around the world. While the kids love dancing to the music, it has also served as a handy tool to point out different continents when we answer their world-related questions.

Multicultural books
The Shelfari group above is an amazing resource of multicultural children's lit, and I regularly mine it for additions to our library reading list. We were particularly delighted to discover author Rachel Isadora, who reimagines classic fairy tales from an African standpoint -- a welcome breather from the typical Disney fare. Our favorites: Rapunzel and The Twelve Dancing Princesses

Mini-me paper dolls
These printable paper dolls hit so many of my toy criteria: they are customizable, portable, simple, imaginative, affordable, and reproducible. We've been fans of the dolls for years, and I was ecstatic to learn that this year's Outfit of the Month Club will showcase Girls Around the World, starting with an outfit from Korea. (But if I'm being honest, I don't think the artist can ever top this series.)




Other ideas we love:

  • We sponsor a little girl with World Vision, which has opened up great conversations about how we can help others around the world.
  • A Little Passports subscription will take your child around the world from the comfort of your home.
  • International dolls with a message of making a difference -- the Hearts For Hearts Girls have it all.

January 22, 2013

Ballet shoes


“Watch us, Mommy,” my younger daughter commands; and I oblige, lifting my eyes to see my two girls fluttering into the room on their tiptoes. They raise their arms and begin to twirl, compelled by a heartfelt spontaneity of movement that my own spirit has long ago subdued. As their spins and dips grow faster and more earnest, they tumble into each other and collapse into a heaving pile of laughter.

My oldest runs over to give me a hug, then leans into my ear. “When I grow up, Mama,” she confides, “maybe I will be a ballerina.”

I cannot suppress a wistful smile: at her age, I was going to be a ballerina, too.


When I was four, I used to pore over my ballet picture books, marveling at the lithe dancers en pointe and imagining myself floating on a stage in dreamy costumes. At last I mustered the courage to show the books to my mother. “Can I have shoes like that?” I asked her one evening, and she explained that those shoes were for dancing and could only be worn by ballerinas. “I want to be a ballerina,” I pleaded; and when she told me that there was a ballet school a few minutes away from our compound and I would have to work very hard for years before I would be able to wear pointe shoes and we would have to ask my grandmother if she would be willing to sponsor the classes because they were quite expensive and are you really sure you want to be a ballerina, I bobbed my head so eagerly in response that she signed me up the next day.

Our dance school was founded and directed by Teacher Shirley, who had been one of the principal dancers of the Philippine national ballet company, and who expected to produce the next generation of prima ballerinas in Quezon City. Her smile was warm and full of joy when we saw her in the hallways, but I rarely saw her smile in class. Teacher Shirley required perfection from every student from the two year olds to the teenagers, and she often walked around the studio to make minute adjustments to the rise of our chins, the curve of our arms, the stretch of our legs. Once satisfied, she would turn to the piano player and nod, and we would resume our dance, timed carefully to her call of the beats above the melody. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. Only after class, when we had been dismissed to the courtyard behind the main studio, were we allowed to resume our childhoods. We would run to our yayas, who tucked washcloths into the back of our leotards to soak up our sweat, and we would devour the snacks they had brought from home.

The other girls in my class were all Filipino -- my sister and I were the only Americans at the time -- and many were incredibly talented. I used to watch in envy as my classmates easily opened into splits or swayed into a pirouette: I could barely touch my toes with my fingertips, let alone bend them to my forehead when we turned onto our tummies during floorwork. Even at four, my body was already curvier than those of my counterparts, whose slender limbs made mine look even plumper in comparison. My feet lacked quickness; my turns lacked precision. In my evaluations, Teacher Shirley diplomatically told my mother I needed to work on my flexibility. “But she has a natural grace,” my teacher added, “and that is something I cannot teach.” I have carried this nugget of promise with me ever since.

Years passed, and still I danced. My mother sent pictures of my sister and me in our tutus to our grandmother in California, who faithfully sent checks painstakingly taped into the folds of her letters to hide them from enterprising postal workers. I became friends with the classmates who had once smirked at my clumsiness, and we giggled together in line as we waited for our turn to perform in class. At the conclusion of each new level, I pulled out my old ballet books to gaze once again at my beloved pointe shoes. I was almost there.

One day, my mother picked me up from my best friend’s house for ballet class, and we drove toward the school as usual. The closer we drove to the neighborhood, the more sluggish traffic became, until we were at a near standstill. A few blocks down the road, giant plumes of black smoke were billowing into the air. “You might be late for class today,” my mother warned me; but as we crept forward it became evident that there would be no class that day. The school was engulfed in flames.

My mother pulled into the parking lot and I clambered out of the car in a daze. Picture book illustrations of buildings on fire came to life as flames snapped in and out of windows and debris pitched to the ground. I saw Teacher Shirley and wanted to run to her, but she was talking frantically to other adults, perhaps crying -- I wasn’t sure. I looked around the parking lot and saw my other classmates, some with their parents and others with their yayas. None of us knew the proper etiquette for exiting the scene of an emergency, so we stayed. My eyes locked with another girl from my class. We were eight by then, but we clung to our parents’ arms the way we had when we first started at the school.

The fire trucks finally arrived -- Teacher Shirley raced to the truck, her long legs perfectly turned out -- but the school continued to burn. My mother told me years later that the firemen demanded a bribe before they would turn on the hoses; and that despite Teacher Shirley’s begging and promises of money from her husband, who rushed to the bank to collect the funds, the firemen refused to fight the fire until they had received payment. It was too late by then. We stood and watched the school burn to ashes.

As I watched the building crumble, the studios where I had spent so many years dancing and leaping and loving, I was troubled to realize that along with my distress, I felt a spark of relief. And then it sank in for the first time: I was never going to be a ballerina. I went home that afternoon and put away my ballet books.

Teacher Shirley rebuilt the school and I did dance again, returning to a life of recitals and tutus and joy. I knew by then, though, that my ballet days were short lived; and so when my grandmother died the next year, I chose not to continue lessons. I was a month away from getting my pointe shoes.

But perhaps the ballerina spirit was never quite extinguished: a full decade later, when I was taking a Pilates class at Stanford, the instructor stopped by my mat. “You must be a ballerina,” she told me. “I can tell.”

So I look at my daughters, who are now twirling again while arguing over which of the two will get to marry Daddy when they grow up, and ponder whether dreams can be inherited. “Come,” I say, getting to my feet and taking their hands. “Let’s dance.”

January 14, 2013

Do-it-yourself passport photos

Once we knew we would be moving overseas, one of our first priorities was to apply for passports. My last passport expired at the end of 2011, which meant that for the first time in my life, I couldn't leave the country.

Despite having handled thousands of passport photos as a student worker in college, I'd never actually applied for a passport here in the US. It was somewhat of a shock to discover that passport photos ranged anywhere from $5-15 for a pair of photos. With five of us in our family, we immediately ruled out this option. Not only did the price seem unreasonably high, but -- much more importantly -- we knew that there was no way any of us were going to get it right on the first try. A proper passport photo requires eyes forward, neutral expressions, and no wiggles. We decided to take the photos ourselves.

A fitted bedsheet draped over our dining room chairs worked beautifully for our plain backdrop, but I think a blank wall would have worked just as well. We snapped photos to our hearts' content and chose the cutest of the bunch. Those pictures were uploaded to epassportphoto, where we were able to adjust the proportions to meet US passport guidelines:



And look: passport photos we could print at the photo printer of our choice! The total cost for all five of us was $0.95. So easy.


Next on our family's agenda: creating mini passports for the beloveds who will be coming with us.



January 8, 2013

Hello goodbye

My oldest daughter sobbed in the backseat as we drove away from the airport nearly a year ago. After two months of sharing life with her grandmother -- my mother --- at our home during my complicated pregnancy and delivery, the season had ended and our newly expanded family was on its own. I blinked back my own heartache as I turned to look at my daughter gasping for breath in the backseat. "Goodbyes are always hard, Mommy," she choked out; and at her premature observation my own tears began to fall.

We're preparing to move to Kenya later this year; and amid the fears and excitement I have for my children as I prepare them for this transition, the goodbyes concern me most of all.

I'm terrible at goodbyes; unfortunately, I think I'm getting worse at them as I age. Years of cultivating a gentle family life here in Colorado have helped me to forget how it felt to regularly leave places and people behind, but as we slowly uproot our family, I begin to remember:

hugging friends for a moment longer, then rushing through the rest of the ritual lest we lose our nerve 
waving at loved ones until I could no longer see them, willing myself to sear their faces into my memory 
huddling in dim airport seats, shutting my eyes to quell the burning torrent behind my eyelids 
lingering in steamy showers -- often my only chance at privacy -- where streams of water would mingle with my tears, giving life to my sorrow and cleansing it all at once
. . .

Then I look at my sweet, settled children and wonder what I am doing to them. With every goodbye now a precursor to The Big Goodbye -- the one when we board a plane to Africa and officially leave behind the only life my children have known -- the panic begins anew for me, this time on behalf of my children. I've held my breath as we've sold our home and cleared out the toy chests, searching my chidren's faces for pain and waiting to see if we're making a mistake.

Instead they remind me of the joy of this life that I, and now they, have been given. "Hooray," they squealed as we moved into a temporary townhouse half the size of our previous home. "A new house! Can we sleep in our sleeping bags?" Their favorite game of the moment is playing airplane, packing up their pink carry-ons and wheeling them around as they pretend to fly across the globe. Their pride in their new passports and curiosity about other cultures -- before they have ever left this country -- make me wonder if just maybe this is in their blood.

And when they have gone to bed and I spend an extra moment gazing at my children before switching off the nightlights, the One who has brought me through each goodbye and washed away my every tear watches them with me and quiets the storm of my heart. Yes, there will be grief; but we are Loved and we are Known and our family will be fine. With hope brimming, I slip into bed beside my husband and dream, too, of the adventure that lies ahead.