sugar coating it.
As inevitably must happen, Ren succumbed to a wave of grief this
afternoon and it was hard. He's sleeping now, but mainly out of pure
emotional exhaustion and overload. As he was falling asleep, he let
out little simpering noises that were so much like what I heard 4
years ago from Kiyomi that it shattered my heart. I knew it had to
come, but that doesn't make it any easier.
Unlike our experience with Kiyomi in 2006, Ren definitely insists on
being with me only. He is amused by Kohji, but still won't really let
him hold him and he turns to me for confort. He wants to be held most
of the time and when he's really upset, it's all me, all the time.
This afternoon, he was insistent that he wanted to go outside. We
spent nearly two hours walking (well me carrying him), but as soon as
we walked back into the hotel room, he kept bringing me my shoes and
pointing to the door. He wanted to go out, and was distraught beyond
words when I told him we couldn't. He spent the next couple of hours
alternating between dragging me to the door and sitting on my lap in
tears. Finally, out of sheer exhaustion, he pulled me to the bed,
insisted I lay down with him, and eventually fell asleep. Yes, I'm
already tallying the therapy bills because of all the mistakes I've
made in the last 12 hours...
It's been tough on Kohji too, as he's become the chief kleenex
getting, grocery running, Kiyomi minder. He does, however, manage to
get way more smiles out of Ren then I do. But, without a doubt,
Kiyomi is the queen of smile-getting. She is rolling with every punch
thrown at her throughout this, and frankly, coming through with the
best attitude out of all of us. I asked her tonight how she was
feeling about all of Ren's tears and the fact that I can't really
spend time with her, and she said "Well, it's kinda loud, but that's
ok, cause he's sad just like I was. But he'll like you soon mommy!"
I nearly cried.
There were some good moments today. We went to the Green Mountain
Park this morning, which sits on top of Nanning. It's a pretty area
with these enormous chunks of limestone placed throughout. There were
school groups and older people exercising, and it reminded me in feel
of Assiniboine Park in Winnipeg a little (although not in appearance),
especially given the lake, the pagodas and the obstacle course for
teenagers. There's a tower at the top of the park that allows for a
360 degree view of the city - or what is about to become the city.
Nanning is growing fast. There are cranes everywhere and looking from
the tower, you can see mudland surrounding a new soccer stadium.
According to our guide, the whole area is in development and will be
built up soon. A prefect example of the speed of change here are the
electric bikes - they're everywhere - which have completely overtaken
regular bicycles. Apparently, the electric versions are a farilly new
phenonemom and the traffic chaos we've been experiencing is in part
the result of the fact that so many have been introduced on the roads
so quickly that many of their riders are not yet comfortable or
familiar with thier actual speed. All of which means that crossing a
street, even with the light is kind of like playing frogger.
The highlight for the kids though was feeding the fish. I'm sure
there are tens of thousands of them in the Green Mountain pond and
when you toss food in the water, they become a boiling mass of fins,
gills and mouths. It's hard to describe, but the water pulse with
them and they surge up when a nugget of food lands in the water. Not
sure if koi really make the basis for a good horror flick, but the
image certainly has it's intensity factor. It's clear that Ren has
done this before. Not only did he not need to be shown how to throw
the food, as soon as the bag of fish food was empty he ran for the
vendor and snatched another bag.
It amazes me that he does seem to be able to communicate and I'm sure
there is alot I'm missing because I'm too dense to pick it up. He
also catches on to things frighteningly quickly. If getting my shoes
weren't evidence enough of his earnest ability to communicate, he
stopped as we were coming out of the elevator this afternoon, pointed
at the keycard in my hand, and ran down the hall, stopped at our door
and tried to shove it in the slot. The only reason it didn't work for
him on the first try was because he had it upside down. Now, he's
probably seen this 3 or 4 times over the last 48 hours, but he's
already figured it out. I'm sure there is a lot more going on in that
busy little brain of his, and it saddens me that I can't know more.
Tomorrow, we head to see some limestone caves about 45 minutes out of
town. Here's hoping Ren has a better day.
Good night from Nanning.
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