Happy (slightly belated) Thanksgiving to all my American readers!
We had a nice, simple family celebration this year... noticeably smaller than previous years, but at least we were all able to get together. We had a nice, long Zoom session with the Long Island branch of the family (who, for obvious reasons, were unable to visit us in July as they have for the past 20+ years), and a nice FaceTime session with the Virginia branch (with whom we've spent the last 15-16 Thanksgivings), so it wasn't quite as isolating as it may have been for other families.
The Pipsqueak made sure we all knew that she had made the "bread thing" (a sweet, layered dish she learned the recipe for in the online Weekend Cooking Club she's joined, courtesy one of her teachers at school) and made pumpkin pie and did a lot of the work on the pecan pie and helped out a lot with the from-scratch mashed potatoes... So we were all thankful for her steadily growing prowess in the kitchen. (She also did agree to try both light & dark meat turkey -- both pronounced '"meh" at best -- and the green bean casserole, which she thought was good enough to finish off a large dollop of. She's still a picky eater...)
We've never made a big deal about November being National Adoption Month, and this year was no exception. The issues surrounding adoption in general, and Miri's specific issues & questions, are something we openly talk about whenever it seems the appropriate time, no special commemorative declarations needed. The Pipsqueak definitely has questions (we'd be worried if she didn't) and sometimes things pop up in unexpected ways due to her background, but aside from the occasional "did you hear about..." we let her determine the right time & place for discussions and so far she's more than OK with that (I've asked). In fact, a couple of weeks ago, she was shoulder-surfing while I had my newsfeed onscreen and was surprised to see it was National Adoption Month -- and then responded with a characteristic "Meh! Okay." when I concurred.
Unfortunately, the pandemic numbers (as I'm sure you know) are all going in the wrong direction, so the county's slowly been backing off from their plan to switch from virtual-only schooling to "hybrid" or in-person schooling in January... and an increasingly common answer to the question, "How's school?" is a thoroughly annoyed "BORING." Despite that -- and despite some odd glitches in grading thanks to the intervention of the county's c computer systems -- Miri is again maintaining a straight-A report card and is feeling pretty good about it. She can get upset if she drops below a certain percentage on quizzes & tests, but we keep telling her she's in school to learn, and as long as she's really trying to do her best than a B (or even a C in certain circumstances) is just as good as an A; what's important is that she's really applying herself and really learning, not what letter shows up on her report card.
Luckily, the dance studio has been able to keep operating even with the county's more stringent COVID rules, so Miri is still dancing more hours per week than I can count. She says, "It's my therapy!" and enjoys the escape from worries about school and everything else -- plus she just plain ol' loves to dance. She has no plans to make it her profession (for over a year she's been saying she wants to be a vet) but takes it seriously and has adjusted to dancing within carefully-marked areas on the floor while wearing a surgical mask.
Miri and I have a lot of serious conversations about how to deal with the stresses of virtual online school (e.g., the phone call a few minutes ago about trying to recover an assignment where she'd completed 9 of the 10 questions only to have the county system fail to save any of her work) and some family medical issues that weigh heavily on her -- and even if I step back from my role of loving uncle I have to say I really am impressed by her maturity. She's a silly, occasionally clumsy, goofy, fun-loving 11-½ year old (with a wicked sense of humor) who sometimes gets caught up in all the politics of pre-teen cliques and such -- but she is also capable of amazingly deep insight into the causes of behavior, differences in points of view, the workings of the world, and much more.
In any case, I just wanted to put out a quick update as we move into what looks like an increasingly complicated holiday season. I hope this finds all of you healthy and able to deal with the increasing volume of rocks and "stuff" that life is throwing at us all during this dumpster fire of a year. I have an assortment of posts in draft form, both Pipsqueak-specific and not, which I hope to be able to bring out into the light of day in the next few months, so stay tuned...
Until then, stay healthy, keep your spirits up, wear your damn masks like you're supposed to, and I'll see y'all again soon...!
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