A High Five for Libby Doodle Doo

At the travel meeting on Saturday, each family was assigned a designator that would be used during our trip to China.

My designator is JX5. JX stands for the Jiangxi province. The “5” indicates my order within the group. So when I travel to China I will be the:

5th family to receive my baby
5th family to go to adoption court
5th family to do my consulate meeting
. . . And so on, and so on.

I really wanted to be number 8 this time. Why???? (especially since it means I would get Libby Doodle Doo later)

Well, the number “8” is VERY lucky in Chinese culture. For example, the Chinese are going to start the Summer Olympics next year on 8/8/08 at precisely 8:08 PM.

I was number 8 family during my trip to pick up Little Zo Peep. Number 8 has always held a special place in my life. I was born on the 8th of March. The individual numbers in Zo Peep’s birth date 05 - 21 (5, 2, 1) when added together become 8. I liked the idea of number “8” being very important to our family.

So I got 5 instead. Not a lucky number in Chinese culture, but not an extremely unlucky one either. And I started to think about the significance of the number 5.

The name Libby has 5 letters.

So does the name I’m actually going to call Libby Doodle Doo.

Libby Doodle Doo’s birth date number 03-02 (3,2) when added together equal 5

My birth date (8th day of March -- 8, 3) when subtracted from each other equals 5

There are 5 years between Little Zo Peep and Libby Doodle Doo.

My LID date December 7th (12, 7) when subtracted from each other equals 5

Since I’ll be getting Libby Doodle Doo in January there will be 5 years between my adoptions.


After all this litany of “the significance of 5” you all probably think I’m a numerology junkie.

Actually, NO. I’m guessing that I could have found linkages to any number that had been assigned to me.

But this little exercise did teach me an important lesson in parenting a second child.

Every child is an individual. What worked for Little Zo Peep – may not work for Libby Doodle Doo.

I need to accept the differences and diversity that Libby will bring to my life and embrace it. So the number “8” won’t be special for Libby Doodle Doo and me. The number “5” will be our number.

All I have to say is "Give me 5."