I am off to Tokyo, Beijing, Hong Kong, and Singapore tomorrow for 10 days, for work. The past few weeks, I have been falling asleep with Dalia, then setting the alarm to wake up again at 9:15 or 9:30 to finish work and communicate with people who are 12-14 hours ahead in Asia. Tonight, when I woke up, I felt very anxious about leaving. When I go away on these trips,leaving Dalia, I am split. My physical body gets up, gets dressed, carries the suitcases and the passport and the plastic bag with mini toothpaste into the car and up to the Burlington airport in the dark. But my heart and mind and spirit that lives within that body stay right here next to Dalia - the whole time. It will be a memorable trip. It will be fun. I will see some Middlebury people whom I care about, meet new people, and have some amazing first-time experiences as I travel with the President of Midd and our Senior VP. And... I will be stretching my tether and waiting every day to have it pull me back home.
Dalia continues to amaze me with her memory, particularly in what she remembers from books. We read "Stone Soup" a few nights ago. Yesterday, she said "Mama, Deb and I played "Stone Soup." She was Lok, and I was Hok." (Deb is her new speech therapist, Hok and Lok are characters from the book.) We've been reading "Beautiful Yetta", about a chicken who speaks Yiddish. Dalia picked up on the Yiddish right away. Saying, "Gey avekh" (go away), "Gevalt!", "Vu Bin Ikh?" (where am I?), "Vos is Dos?" (what is that) -- and more. She uses these words in context. She is also more and more interested in Mandarin, and I am trying to use more words and sentences with her. Tonight we looked at a children's book written in Mandarin. I could read most of the words... time to get out the dictionary! She listened as I read the words out loud and then translated into English.
We were talking about being Chinese and Jewish. She has learned the song "Shabbat, Sholom" and she'll start singing it for now reason. I said "honey, you are the only Chinese Jewish girl at your school!" And Dalia said, "No, Mama, I'm Yiddish."
She asked about Grandpa Don again. "Can we call him?"
I will miss you, Dalia! Have fun while I am gone.
