Saigon...

Breakfast in front of the Buddhist shrine of our motel lobby, a variation of Pho. Kino is proving himself a fairly adventurous eater, and also something of an organizer as he returns food droppings to his bowl. It must be difficult putting up with parents as unwell-versed in the skills of wrapping noodle in bite-size portions. Other ways he comes well geared to the rigors of the transitional step ahead and the clumsiness of parent wanna-bes include an endurance for waiting and travel. Today has been a marathon of office visits across the down town administrative district, affirming pretty much what we’ve come to imagine the reality of government bureaucracy to be through the lengths of our wait stateside; rooms choked with the traffic of bodies and reams of paper across a sea of desks. Kino has been a real trooper, weathering the waits and mill of the masses in tight spaces. Never a whimper or sour look but rather an easy readiness to pick up and go or occupy himself without fuss during extended sits. This is enormously relieving to us, of course as we contemplate the looming feat of our return flight to Seattle. It was a dark moment indeed in the latter stage of our trip here to witness the efforts of one parent to comfort a very distraught child about Kino’s age, trying to subdue the wails of a serious emotional breakdown by walking him up and down the aisle in his arms. A mix of the frayed edges of our own emotional state at that advanced stage of the flight with an acute sense aroused by that spectacle about our woeful lack of experience in the parent role had us both feeling a heavy weight of pre-game jitters, and I’ll admit about my own perspective a distinct longing for the company of my own mother.

Also on the side of big plusses to Kino’s disposition we find that he’s half potty trained, meaning that he knows how to handle the trough from the front side. Back side duty requires diaper support at night, the logistics of which involved some mess in the discovery stage. We need some guidance about the potty training process, that would no doubt benefit from a proportionally sized seat and a step.

Lots to report about, have to do it in bite sizes. S