Blue Spots

When we got Kirby on Monday the guide explained that it is a hard day for the children. Many times it is their first time in a car, and in a big city. Then they are handed to someone who looks and sounds and smells different (that would be me). She suggested that we leave them in the same clothes for the first night, and so we did. Tuesday we gave her the first bath and it was full of bubbles, we made it short and quick to keep a happy time. On Wednesday, we took a great tour of the pavillion in Nanchang and Kirby spent most of the day in the front carrier and it was very hot. When we got to the hotel and I changed her diaper I noticed a blue spot on and around her tailbone. I tried to rub it off and was afraid it was a bruise from sitting in the carrier to long. I then noticed a blue spot on MY thumb and just assumed we had both touched something that faded. I even tested the Chinese Pampers to see if the blue stripe on them fades, but they don't. I  knew we had a medical examine on Saturday and I didn't want some strange doctor (or any doctor for that matter) thinking I let my child get into something blue and didn't get her clean. I really don't know why we have an examine or what they look for, I just know its part of the adoption process, we are in China and I don't want anything to go wrong. So on Thursday and Friday I had David come help me  bathe her by holding her so I could scrub her blue spot. I was sure I saw it fading and so I scrubbed some more. When we had the medical exam on Saturday the Chinese doctor who spoke  English, rolled her over and pointed to the spot and said "Mongolian Spot".  Now I had read about Mongolian spots before I came. I know many Asian children have them and they can look like bruises so you need to show them ahead of time to caregivers, but I expected them to look round like the animal in the Dr. Suess book who gets all the colored spots. I expected them to be a deep blue, black, brown color like a bruise. I had just spend days scrubbing what is basically a birth mark. We had ourselves a good chuckle over that, but not nearly as good as our Chinese guides Linaker and his wife Amy who just kept shaking their heads and laughing as I was retelling the story. Amy and Linaker explained that they are not like birthmarks because they fade and will usually be gone by the time the child is 10 and now my thumb is clean. I have no idea what my blue spot was but its gone after all that scrubbing. 

There is a moral in this story somewhere, a lesson to be learned. Certainly an awareness of how very different cultures can be. A lesson that no matter how much you read, its not as good as first hand experience. But in the end probably just a good lesson in how to laugh at myself and the certainty that will not be the last silly thing that I do.