I cleared most of the extraneous things from my calendar. I’m ‘just saying no’ to things I otherwise would have said yes to — writing projects, school parent duties, cooking!

I took the trip I said I needed to make to get started. And found some amazing things I never thought I would discover about my little PunditGirl.

One of my best friends keeps saying, only half in jest, “Is it done yet?”

But for some reason, I’m stuck. Part of it is this crazy thing called blogging, part of it is paying work and part of it is fear.

What if no one wants to read it? What if I can’t write it? What if PunditGirl doesn’t want to know it?

The “it” is a book. About me. And PunditGirl. (And Mr. PunditMom, of course). And our journey to each other.

Chinese legend says that there is an invisible and unbreakable red thread that joins all people who are meant to be together. Sometimes it’s tangled or extremely long. But if people are meant to be together, the red thread will lead them to each other.

But what happened between the time that PunditGirl was born and the “red thread” attached itself to our hearts and the time that it brought us together is a story I feel compelled to know.

A missing year of her life is too much of a mystery. A few pieces of the puzzle can be easily discovered, but most will take a lot of digging. And even with that, there will still be significant parts we will never know.

A good idea? Hard to say.

But there’s information out there I need to know. I’m just not sure why I’m scared to find it.

I was a bit busy upon our arrival back in the U.S. with instant motherhood and night terrors (hers, not mine) and the unexpected end of a career that I had assumed would be there when we returned from China, but wasn’t.

I was preoccupied with all the things new mothers get bogged down with like nap and feeding schedules, assessments by the pedatrician’s office of PunditGirl’s general physical health after a year in an orphanage, and how to deal with being cut-off almost instantaneously from the professional and social support network I had created for myself.

I didn’t really have a moment to focus on her missing year. I only had energy to keep my head above water.

Now that PundiGirl is seven, life is different. There are new issues, but the overwhelming demands on my time to be there for her each and every need have morphed into a different kind of parenting. Not less taxing emotionally, but I do have a few spare minutes to shower and eat.

And more time to think about the days I missed. And the months.

And the fact that PunditGirl was going to have a hole in the history of her life most children don’t.

So I came up with a plan that sounded a little crazy — to find out as much as exists about her life before the red thread brought us together.

I’m lucky in a way most adoptive families will never be. There is someone I met after we became PunditGirl’s parents who visited the orphanage just weeks before we traveled there. She and her family took scads of photos.

And videos.

So even though it seemed like folly, I bought plane tickets to meet with this family and talk and see what information they had.

It was worth every penny for one thing alone — a videotape.

There on one of the many videotapes they had shot inside the orphanage was my little pumpkin head.

A PunditBaby.

One who was totally different than the child presented to us in a hotel room just days before the Year of the Dragon turned to the Year of the Snake.

Inquisitive. Smiling. Playful. Cautious.

Scooting around a playroom in one of those baby walkers with wheels that American parents are now cautioned never to use.

Listening to tinny Chinese children’s music emanating from an old cassette player hung from the ceiling. Following her nannies when called to the door to return to another room for lunch and a fresh diaper.

I’d had thoughts of her, not knowing what her life was like, worrying that there were no smiles or toys or affection in her life. We were warned that the babies’ lives were hard but that the nannies did their best with the few resources they had.

I didn’t expect to see a happy baby, though.

And while I know she was not happy all the time (what baby is), the video filled my heart with overwhelming joy to know that one of the stories that we created for PunditGirl — that the “aunties” who took care of her also cared for her — was, in fact, the truth.

I saw what the nannies did for the 100 or so infants and toddlers. A routine of hard labor — I can’t imagine the thought of dealing with 100 babies. Every. Single. Day.

Of course, we were told lots of things while we were there and had some basic information about when PunditGirl slept and what she ate and their characterizations of her personality (which were not off the mark).

But in a living room in New Chinatown in San Francisco on an unusually beautiful August morning near the bay, I got a peek into PunditGirl’s life that I never thought we would have. Most children like her never will.

Only the sheer coincidence that there was another little girl from the same baby home, whose parents travel to China frequently, who wanted to write a book about where she came from led to the making of a videotape that will be able to answer a multitude of questions for PunditGirl when she is older.

Concrete answers. Real answers. Not conjecture or supposition.

Her real life. As it was before she became PunditGirl. Not her whole life, but a big part of it.

It’s not a lot. It’s not the same as the first lock of hair or the first baby tooth or all the firsts that parents get to document for children who become theirs at the moment of birth that those nannies couldn’t.

But it’s a start. It’s more than we ever thought we would find.

And that makes me profoundly happy.

I wasn’t sure we would have an opportunity, but our visit ended in the late afternoon and it was a beautiful, sunny day. So off we wandered, visitor’s map in hand to make our way to see the gate and stroll through the shops and past the restaurant windows.

At age seven, PunditGirl is firmly at the stage of the small souvenir.

Any trip we go on requires a stop somewhere to bring home a trinket that no doubt will soon be lost or broken. But she loves the hunt, as well as proudly handing her coins over to the cashier and strolling out of the shop with her prize.

Her focus was much different in the Chinatown shops, though. Usually her attention is captured by small boxes or pencils, T-shirts or friendship bracelets.

This time, though, a shelf of tiny little Buddhas just at her eye level stopped her in her tracks. First, she was amused.

“He has a big belly and boobies!” she exclaimed.

Each one was a little different — smiling, serious, different poses. She picked up several, feeling their smoothness in her hands and examining their various features. Of course, she wanted to know who Buddha was and I tried in my best, non-religious way to explain that he was a wise man who lived a long, long time ago.

After a few moments, she showed me a happy little Buddha — one who looked like he was smiling up at the clouds. “I want this one,” PunditGirl said quietly, “He makes me feel calm.”

For $1.99, I figured a little calm couldn’t hurt. But she’s become attached to the little guy. He has to sit on her nightstand next to her bed because “he helps me sleep.” She likes to rub his Buddha belly and is curious about why people like to have statues of him.

Is there a budding philosophy or religion major in my home? Maybe. But even if not, the chubby little guy is an interesting addition to her ever-growing souvenir collection.

On another note, it’s official! DC Metro Moms Blog launches today! Take a little side trip to see which Washington area moms are going to be hanging out there!

We know she was born in Hunan Province in China in December of 1999. And we know she lived in Changsha First Social Welfare Institute for most of the time before we adopted her on January 7, 2001. We know a few details of what her life was probably like, thanks to this book — Kids Like Me in China, a book that was written by an eight-year-old girl adopted from CFSWI, just like PunditGirl.

For a variety of reasons, both professional and personal, I’ve developed an E-mail relationship with the author’s mom, a woman who is, herself, very involved in the international adoption community. So PunditGirl and I are off today on an interesting trip — to sit down and talk with this family who has maintained connections with the baby home and the caregivers, a family who may be able to shed a little light for us on some facts, not just educated guesses, about life in China and inside the baby home during the year PunditGirl was there.

We both are a little nervous — PunditGirl not sure she wants to hear any of this, and me, not sure I can put it together for her in a way that will be helpful to her when she’s older.

It’s probably not the best way to think of it, but I decided that if it was me, I would want to have as much information as possible about what my life was like then.

For most of us, our memories are provided by parents, birth or otherwise, who have been there for us since the moment of birth — baby pictures, first locks of hair, notations made of various ‘firsts.’

We have those, but they don’t start until PunditGirl was 12 months old.

So an opportunity has presented itself where many people who have access to information might be able to help us put the puzzle called ‘PunditGirl’s First Year’ together.

Right now the jigsaw puzzle of her infant days is a mere border — the border you first put together when trying to complete the 1,000 piecer on the kitchen table. If I can find a way to fill in the vast blank space in the middle, maybe that will give her something to hold on to about who she was before she became PunditGirl.