Happy 6th Birthday Meredith!

...And it seemed real. It seemed like us. And it seemed like well... our home... If not Arizona, then a land, not too far away, where all parents are strong and wise and capable, and all children are happy and beloved... I dunno, maybe it was Utah.

-"Raising Arizona"

Happy and beloved.

"It'll be so easy to find her birth parents," I said to Roger this morning as Meredith was eating breakfast while simultaneously humming a happy little tune under her breath and beaming at three grumpy, sleepy people.

"What do you mean?" he muttered, desperately shaking the coffee pot to see if any remained from three days ago.

"We'll just take her back to Wuzhou and ask, 'Who's the happiest people in town? The ones who walk around with a perpetual smile on their face?'"

"I've never seen a baby lak that," commented my friend Lisa, Masters In Child Development, when we brought her home. "Why she just sets around grinnin' all day."

Happy Birthday Meredith!

You are the happiest child I've ever seen. You take a happy pill in the morning and go around all day spreading happiness. You love to give, you love to help people, and I know that you sincerely wanted to give your sister the $20.00 received as a birthday present, but I most sincerely want to whop Madeleine's tiny Chinese butt for extorting it from you. You will be forced to take this money back whether you like it or not.

I am not a mother blinded by fatuous love. You're whiny and way too sensitive and a tattletale and you need to learn to stand on your own two feet. Also, you prefer Daddy over me, and that shows extremely poor judgment.

But I honestly cannot remember a mean thing that you have done to anybody at any time, in your entire little Shiny Happy Life.

You love everybody and everything. I'd feel comfortable sitting in a bomb shelter with you. You'd be singing and organizing a game of charades.

Your teacher told you about the World Trade Center this year. She was crying because one of her friends died. You came home and told me about it and spread your hands wide and said, "How did they arrange all the burials?" and stared intensely into my eyes.

You were concerned.

You are straighforward and sincere, unlike your cunning and devious sister. Madeleine is my doppelganger, my mini-me, my partner in crime.

You are a ray of sunshine shot straight from heaven, a place where all children are happy and beloved.

Oh you are.