The wonderful world of Layla: Day Six

No surrender, no retreat. This is the mantra you need to cross the street here. These motor bikes and cars act like either their brakes don’t work or they don’t know how to use them. I also thinks it helps if you have a look on your face that says, “I dare you to hit me.” At first I was nervous to cross the street, I would stand right next to the person who took the step out in the street, but now that I know how the game is played sometimes I step out first. But once you commit, you’re committed. There’s no going back. I don’t know what someone would do if they dropped something. I don’t think I would want to see that.

It’s interesting because you cross the street only to possibly end up back in the street because the sidewalks are covered. There are scooters parked on the sidewalks. Sometimes scooters use the sidewalk to drive on if the streets are too congested (wouldn’t this really help LA traffic if we could do this?). People sell things on them. People have restaurants, complete with the tiniest picnic tables I’ve seen or using plastic children’s tables and chairs, on the sidewalks. And people actually sit down and eat with you walking literally right next to them. Another thing you wouldn’t see in America. Though to be honest, isn’t it really just a waist high fence separating you and the tourists when you’re eating outside at Broadway Deli?

I also have to say the sellers on the street are HUSTLERS! They could give the Jamaicans a run for their money (this statement makes sense if you ever watched “In Living Color”). It was 9PM and we’re walking down the street, which was as busy as Wilshire during rush hour, and the sellers are still out their kids are playing on the sidewalk beside them. And for the sellers who weren’t lucky enough to get a spot under the streetlight, they had their own light so you could see the merchandise. Yes, I said it, their OWN LIGHT. Is that not the definition of hustling?

The activity of the day besides going to the marketplace was going to the Water Puppet Show. And like my other experiences here in Vietnam, it is exactly how it sounds. It was a puppet show that took place in water. Some of the puppets were swimming dragons, fishing men, swimming women…We tried to follow the acts from our program, but it was kind of hard to read in the dark, and I couldn’t see anyway over the tall people, the children practically standing, and the people videotaping. The puppet show took place with a live band/singers on the sides.

Layla thankfully didn’t mind that she really couldn’t see, she was content to chill. But poor baby Ben didn’t like all the noise.

While walking back to the hotel and seeing all the young adults out on the scooters, it made me wonder what does the family do when the foursome can’t ride together anymore? Do they upgrade to a car? Or do they get a second scooter and each parent rides a kid? Things that make you go hmm…

When all three families are together, people stop and want to talk or touch the kids. I was ready for this and knew the polite thing to do was to allow this though this goes against my nature. But at the end of the day, we are ambassadors of sorts for American adoptions. And it’s only for two weeks so I figured I could suck it up. But guess what, Layla isn’t the one that is stopped. Ben and James get tons of people around them, but not my baby girl. Why is this? Is it because she’s not riding on my hip, like Ben? Or facing out, like James? She faces me in the Baby Ergo. But I don’t think this is it.

I looked into Layla’s face and she had this look that said, “I am not the one.” I am not the one for you to fawn all over. I’m not the one for you to touch at will. Her look reminded me of a story her Oma told me. When I was a baby, my mom and dad went to lunch at the neighborhood Thrifty’s off of Brooks in Venice. (I know. Thrifty’s had a lunch counter?!) An acquaintance of my dad’s came up, chitchatted, and then asked to see the baby. My mom said, no. After the acquaintance left, my dad asked, why she wouldn’t she move the blanket? To which my mom replied, her baby wasn’t some show and tell baby and if anyone wanted to see her baby they could wait until the baby was up and walking around. That story is so my mother and it explains why our family was surprised when she had finally had a kid. But it also reminds me exactly of Layla’s expression.

I wonder sometimes if God forgets who I am. Remember I was the good, obedient child that got good grades, yet it seems like you’ve given me two little girls who are replicas of my mother, who was stubborn and on the surface not so friendly. Did I mention stubborn and not so friendly and takes a while to warm up to strangers? Aren’t you supposed to get the kind of kid you were? Then in this case, Jory is my great white hope.

But Layla did allow someone to touch her hand and even lean their forehead against hers. I was surprised by this, until the person lifted their head and I saw a young man who had Down syndrome. Go Miss Layla!

It’s not that she moves away from people that touch her or talk to her, it’s just this look. “I am not the one,” it just sums up the look completely. Scary that at not even one, she has that look. Probably just like her Oma had back in the day when she was one. I wish my grandma was here so I could ask her how my mom was as a baby.