This year’s Christmas letter is being written in a different set of circumstances in our home. Changes have taken place, things we aren’t used to having to deal with, and we are still trying to wrap our minds around the concept. I refer, of course, to the fact that Girard’s Fantasy Football team is one of the worst in the league this year, and he won’t make the playoffs. These are happy times for us, but it would be even better with a winning Fantasy Football team.
This year we welcomed Bryn Jenna CaiXing Hengen into our meagre existence, and that has made all the difference in our food and water bills. Not only that, but when Girard is alert enough after yet another night with not enough sleep, he secretly sizes up other people’s strollers, and feels stroller envy when someone has a really nice model, with the fancy big inflatable wheels and cool brand name. One benefit, though, to having a youngin’ is that when you’re walking in the mall, everyone is looking at our kid and her stroller. Nobody even notices the stroller pusher, so that allows us to walk around uncombed and unshaven (one of us, at least) without a care in the world.
Without a care, other than the hundreds of things we think could befall Bryn at any given moment. This is no exaggeration. We’re obviously new to the parenting thing. At our age we should be getting fitted for bifocals and bionic knees, but instead we now chase after our little girl, hoping for the best, hoping we don’t screw this one up. Girard just wants to rest, as he is even more tired than normal, but no such luck. Now he has to create as many objects as he can from a 24-block set, or sing (or in his case, recite) kids’ songs he doesn’t even know. Raelene has been doing most of the heavy lifting in the parenting department, which is typical, being that women are better at it than men. In a moment of weakness, men are apt to be more concerned about an upcoming second down conversion than whether the gate at the top of the stairs is closed.
We travelled to China in early February. We had an anxious night in Beijing before we met Bryn the following day. We flew to a tiny city of four million in southeast China called Nanchang. Bryn is from city of one million — hardly even a hamlet — called Xinyu, located near Nanchang, which is the capital of the province on Jiangxi. It’s a poor region of China. Sights, sounds and smells assaulted our senses, and that was just the stuff coming out of Girard. But Jiangxi is Bryn’s first home, and we came to really love it and its people, who might not have much, but they enjoy each day with a smile and good humour. Our society, with everything we can imagine available to us, could learn from that. We spent four nights in Nanchang, blissful and stressful times, and returned to Beijing for six more nights before departing. We had the good fortune to share our experiences with 11 other amazing families who have now become part of our extended family.
Bryn didn’t seem to mind us at first, but she was wary. It didn’t matter, she was our girl, and in time she became comfortable with us, and we with her. In no time we saw her first steps, her eating with a spoon, her first words, and her first timid walks outside. She’s very shy and not in a rush to fling herself headlong into anything (much like her parents). Despite that, she is now a non-stop talker, counter, reader, singer, runner, crawler, player, dancer, colourer, eater — you name it, she’s doing it. We started a blog when we returned from China about our life with Bryn, and if you are interested the address is http://littlemissbryn.blogspot.com.
This Christmas season we wish all the best for you. It’s a time of glad tidings — and we have more than enough to share. In fact, we’re positively radiating glad tidings, as hard as that is for people who know Girard to believe. We hope some of it rubs off on you during the holidays.
We wish you a Merry Christmas and healthy, happy New Year.
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