Halloween Part Two

What we didn't include was specifics about trick or treating in LaGrange Park. Maisie and Luc were accompanied by their cousins Elizabeth (the cute and scary witch), Doyle (the pirate) and Sean (the spider) along with Tom (crazy hair guy), and Kathy. The weather was perfect. And Ed took awesome pictures, so here are more!

As Ed mentioned, Maisie walked with Elizabeth, but she also had several encounters with furry creatures.

Long time since last post!

So we haven't posted forever. That means we missed the birthdays on October 10 and 11. But how can we miss our first Halloween together?

We went out to LaGrange Park to visit Peggy's sister and her family, partly because we didn't want to brave the craziness of trick or treating in Hyde Park and mainly so that we could trick or treat with our cousins!

Maisie walked the whole way--about four blocks maybe. Oh yes, it is news to the blog that Maisie is walking....

This short blog is really just an excuse to post the pictures. The costumes, as it happens, were birthday presents from big sisters Mairead and Hanna.

Still Catholic after all these years

We’re still not sure what we are doing with this blog.

It is no longer a blog about Vietnam, but a blog about our new family.

And something new about us, something that started in Vietnam, perhaps, is that we go to church. We’re not sure how it happened. Not so long ago, it seems, Peggy was making proposals for a Buddahist naming ceremony as a way to welcome a baby to our family.

Last Saturday we gathered about twenty family members and friends at Holy Family Catholic Church and Rev. Jerry Boland baptized Luc Au Su and Maisie Minh Tam. Then we ate a nice lunch at Saint Ignatius, with pizzacottos from Pompei (and cannollis for dessert). The weather was beautiful, the church was beautiful after many years of careful renovation and refurbishment, and, according to all the guests, it is hard to remember that Ignatius is just a high school, because it looks so good inside and out.

In fact, and surprisingly, perhaps, we’ve been going to church at Holy Family regularly since our return from Vietnam. In Vietnam, you might remember, we attended Easter mass at the Catholic Cathedral, where we also watched a staging of the crucifixion on Good Friday.

Peggy and I do not consider ourselves to be very religious or very strong in our beliefs as Catholics. Some of our beliefs go against traditional teachings of the church.

But we have found ourselves comforted in the church itself and among the parishioners, who have been generous and welcoming. It is also the place we have come to associate with Declan, our infant son who died just two days old, because we held his memorial gathering of our friends and family at Holy Family. We have visited the church each of the last two years on his birthday. And now, visiting there each week is, in a sense, like visiting him with our two new family members.

In his remarks at the baptism, Father Boland noted that Holy Family, which is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year, had been founded as a church for immigrants—a place where immigrants from many different countries gathered with something in common. In a strange land, the church brought people together. He talked about a helpful conversation with another priest with a Vietnamese background, in preparation for baptizing Luc and Maisie. The Vietnamese, Father Boland noted, have tremendous feeling and respect for their ancestors and believe strongly in a connection between the living and family members who have died.

Organizing the event was a little bit hard, especially trying to find a date that worked for everyone and that fit with the schedule at the church. In the end we couldn’t make it work for everybody. After our event we drove out to LaGrange Park where Peggy’s sister Kathy was holding a birthday party for her youngest son, Sean, and where all of Peggy’s family, her brother John, and her other sister Eileen, were able to be together for a few hours. John, his wife Sara, and their kids Kate and Griffin were able to make both events in the same Saturday afternoon trip from Champaign.

Earlier, at Holy Family, her Aunt Fran and Uncle Bud, and her cousins Jimmy Devenney, with is wife Cathy, and Peggy Abboud, with her daughter Ellie, had joined us.

On my side my brother Bob and his wife Sylvia traveled from Boston for the weekend to be god parents, with Eileen for Luc. My mother Joyce also made the trip, and she has been visiting with us for a week now. My daughters Mairead and Hanna brought their friends Sham, who works with me at Ignatius, and Alex.

Finally, but not least, our friends Kelly and Jeff were godparents for Maisie. Through these hard years they have been the friends we have relied upon most.

It was a beautiful day for us, and all our guests—and Father Boland--made it feel special for us.

On Sunday, my mom joined Peggy, Luc, Maisie, and me again at Holy Family. At the end of mass, Father Boland introduced all of us, but especially Maisie and Luc, to the parish. “Most of us have already met these beautiful babies, who have made a long journey to be with us,” he told the congregation. “But now we can welcome them as new members of our Catholic church.”

Two days before, on Friday, we had talked with the church deacon, a retired Ignatius teacher Rudy Kotleba, who explained the baptism ceremony and sacrament to us in our preparation meeting. Baptism is a ceremony that introduces us to the ups and downs of family life, he told us. He asked us why Catholics pray to their saints—because we believe in intercessions—and what Catholics can expect because of their communion—remarkable consistency from church to church and place to place, because of the connections between Catholics everywhere through the church.

About a year ago, as Peggy and I continued to struggle to start our own family, her sister Kathy gave her a Saint Gerard medal, which, she believes, had helped some of her friends who were struggling to start families. “If you wear it every day,” she told Peggy, “it will work for you, too.”

Peggy and I still don’t know where our beliefs really begin and end, when it comes to religion. Clearly we are in some transition. But a year ago we were beginning a long wait for a baby from China, after five previous years of waiting and two tragedies in our attempts to start a family.

Today we are home with two babies that we love very much, and we have family and friends who have been a great help and support in getting us to this new family and new home. And in strange ways the strands of this story have been weaving a pattern that reveals itself a little bit at a time—but each bit is interesting in its own way.

As Eileen said at one point, “Peggy, you’re really going to church?”

A day at the beach

If we had made this post right away, our day at the Indiana Dunes beach on Saturday, May 19 would have seemed more impressive. Now it is past Memorial Day—and beaches everywhere are open!

In fact, there was no swimming allowed at the Indiana Dunes that day. But if Maisie could talk she would tell you that the water made her feet very, very cold.

This post is really just an excuse to post some pictures of Maisie and Luc. Our trip to the dunes was also just an excuse to drive our BOB jogging stroller around in a new location.

In terms of other news, we continue to grow and learn as a family. Our Dunes trip was a try-out, as well, for a family car trip. We did reach Maisie’s level of tolerance for time in her car seat during a long day in which we left home at noon or so and returned at 7 in the evening. Our Dunes trip included a swing through Valparaiso to shop at a Target. What did we buy after our day at the beach? Sand shovels and buckets, baby beach chairs, and even a baby beach tent! Also some size 3 diapers for Maisie and some new plush bath towels.

Ed eyed the double bicycle stroller attachment, but Peggy suggested holding off—in part because there was no room left in the car.

We’re ready for summer, baby!

So what else has been going on?

Of course we have to say more about the last two weeks—actually, closer to three weeks—since we’ve been home. If you want to know how we spend our time, we're usually either on the playmat or out for a walk!

Peggy has been catching up with her classes at the University of Chicago, which started without her while we were in Hanoi. I’ve been at home much of each day with the babies, until Peggy comes home in the afternoon. Then I head to Saint Ignatius to coach our boys track team. The schedule works great, with the only problem on Tuesday afternoons when Peggy has class and I have to coach. We’ve been getting help from Peggy’s friend and colleague at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, Maureen Schmidt, who has stayed with Maisie and Luc. She has been a lifesaver for us. Peggy's sister Eileen took an afternoon class, too!

Weekends have been lots of track meets and some shopping. On one visit to Target we used the gift card from the boys on my team to buy various baby essentials. As noted, we also splurged on a jogging stroller.

We’ve had lots of visitors, including friends Kelly and Jeff, Charlotte, Uncle Johnny and my daughter Mairead, who of course is also Maisie's and Luc's sister. When Peggy had a late afternoon meeting with one of her professors on campus, she met up with Mairead who took the babies for a stroll around campus—except the short stroll turned out to be two hours. Mairead managed well, but she got worried when the sun was going down and the babies started to get cold and a little cranky after she had already fed them with all the supplies we had given her! Peggy and I both returned in the nick of time. For Mairead it was a little like Vietnam was for us, when one woman told her that she needed to put more clothes on those babies!

We have so many thank yous to give—especially to Peggy’s Lab School colleagues who threw her a shower where they met Maisie and Luc.

So how are we doing?

We’re all adjusting well. We haven’t blogged for a while—just busy.

Part of our busy-ness: We bought a double jogging stroller! Last night we took it out for the first family walk on the lakefront. We drove downtown and parked near Northerly Island and the Planetarium.

While on Lakeshore Drive we noticed a large number of people marching around in the Soldier Field and McCormick Place parking lots. Then we noticed lots of cardboard boxes. It was a rally to protest the refugee status of children around the world, with special attention to Darfur. One of my Ignatius runners, Jim Mumford, had mentioned the rally to me the day before. The kids are all going to sleep out overnight.

After we parked, we walked back toward the rally. We parked the stroller outside the gate and surveyed the crowd. I recognized an Ignatius student, a former runner Mike Mason, standing among the boxes, and then I saw Erin Casey, Molly Hogan, Caitlin Lanigan, and Danielle LoVallo—with a bunch of other Ignatius students. We called to them and Danielle and Erin came over to say hello to Luc and Maisie.

We wanted to say thank you to the students who spent the night at the protest. Luc and Maisie, of course, are in their own way displaced children.

And we thought we were adventurous...

Things are going well here at home.

The last member of our Hanoi cohort, Marci, has also returned. Her son, Jamie, remember, had an ear infection which delayed their return.

But in the meantime, in Hanoi, Marci, Betty, and Katie kept busy. We thought we were adventurous. It seems the longer one stays in Hanoi, the more adventurous one becomes. Here's Marci's email to us about her final adventure before her return:

"Well, tonight we had a true Vietnamese experience. We went with Peter (the American guy that lives in Hanoi), his wife Mai, their son Bao, and her friend Hong to the Botanical Gardens where they play badminton. Afterwards they took us to this little restaurant just outside the Gardens gate. We were the only Western people there. When we walked up there was a little piglet roasting over this big grill (which we eventually ate). This is the kind of side of the road restaurant. We ate outside on little metal tables. They ordered all this food for us to try, and everyone else and my mom had this special beer (I don't like beer). Well, one of the dishes was dog. It was actually pretty good. If you thought it was beef it would have been excellent. They said that eating dog makes you lucky and that when people are having a rough time in their life or they are fighting with loved ones they eat dog and then they feel better. I figured we needed all the luck we could right about now. So since I ate my dog and was now full of luck I decided to try my luck on a motor bike in the streets of Hanoi. Mai's friend had her motor bike with her so she took me on a ride around the city. It was an amazing evening. It was real Vietnamese not commercial Vietnamese. Just thought I'd let you know about our night."