Black Water and Static

Well, we're finding a few more things that Charlie will eat. Just not at school. He's not real happy about school lunches. (Then again, if I remember correctly, I never raved about school lunch, either!) I keep a well-stocked fruit bowl and individual-sized cans of tuna at home so he can have a snack when he gets home if he didn't eat lunch. He's happy.

I'm cooking Chinese dinners about half the time, and the rest of the time I cook other stuff just to see what he'll end up liking. He tries pretty much anything. Doesn't necessarily eat it after trying it, but at least he tries.

Ever seen anyone put a spoonful of peanut butter in his mouth and then try and get every last smidgen back out while gagging over the trash can?

We went shopping together at the local Asian market one night a couple of weeks ago, and got a ton of stuff he liked. The first night I made stir-fry, he was bossing me around the kitchen like he knows how to cook it. I had bought oyster sauce and hoisin sauce for the spices. He couldn't read the label but smelled it. Then he shook his head no, and said what we needed was black water.

Huh????

Black water. He then proceeded to go through my kitchen, opening every liquid bottle in the cabinets looking for black water. He finally found what he wanted.

It was a bottle of Gravy Master.

No, no, no....I'm puttin' my foot down here. No Gravy Master in the stir-fry. He was quite insistent that this is what they used in China. I flat-out refused and sent him out of the kitchen. I finished the stir-fry with the oyster sauce and hoisin sauce, and doggoned if he didn't love it and eat 2 heaping plates of it.

I have since realized that black water is probably soy sauce. That I could have dealt with. But not Gravy Master.

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Last night we were playing Monopoly (Rick, Charlie, 'n' me). Charlie LOVES Monopoly. And he only got burned in a trade once. Rick got one of the cheap-o properties from him in exchange for two very nice, expensive properties, and then proceeded to put hotels on the cheap-o place. You should have seen Charlie's face when he landed on something that previously had cost him only $4 in rent, and found he had to pay something like $450. That has never happened again.

But I digress. We were playing Monopoly, and Charlie suddenly gets this idea. He picks up a metal ruler that was laying on the table near him, and he starts rubbing it through his hair vigorously.

What on earth are you doing, child?

Need paper.

So I handed him a piece of paper from his homework we had been working on earlier.

No, paper to tear up.

He jumps up and heads out of the room, comes back with a blank piece of paper, and promptly tears it into little shreds.

Then he picks up the ruler and starts rubbing it in his hair again.

???? Rick and I are giving each other rather puzzled glances.

Then Charlie takes the ruler and holds it over top of the paper shreds.

Okay, we get it now. He is obviously trying to use static electricity to get the paper to "jump" up to the ruler.

The problem is, this ruler had a strip of cork along the back of it. No static charge.

Charlie gets closer and closer to the paper, and just doesn't understand why the paper won't behave for him. He finally gives it an irritated look, smacks the pile of paper with the ruler, and little shreds of paper go flying all over the place. Then he looks at us with frustration and says, "But it worked in China."

Long, pregnant pause before Rick and I simply fell out laughing.

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By the way, for those of you who are Sherpa fans, I have an update. Remember back when I blogged about our trip to the orphanage, and there was a young deaf boy there who made eye contact with Jen and wouldn't let go? He wrapped his little fist right around that huge heart of hers, and hasn't let go of that, either. His other little fist reached across the ocean and grabbed her husband's heart and held on tight there, too.

It is now official. Jen and her husband are in the paperchase, and we are hoping their new son (who shall be called Eli) will come home around end of summer. Since we now have the e-mail address and are in regular contact with the directress of the orphanage, she already knows about it and has already informed the child, and she says he is very happy about it.

Praise God--another deaf child that China considers "unadoptable" has found a family full of loving arms and hearts. And he was never even on the registry! Is this a fairy-tale ending, or what?

Congratulations, Eli. And congratulations Jen and Joel.