Even Santa doesn't have that much magic

Last night as I was tucking Molly into bed, she looked at me with wide eyes and announced, "I just had the best idea."

"What is that?" I asked, completely unaware of what little thoughts were running through her head at the time.

"I know what to ask Santa for next Christmas."

Great, I thought. Here we go again. She's always planning on her next present no matter how far off it is.

"I'm going to ask him to bring me a picture of my birth mother." She beamed like she had finally figured it all out.

Uh, oh. I didn't see that one coming. It took me a second to recover.

"Well, Molly" I said, "I don't think Santa can do that."

"Sure he can. He's magic, remember?" She was so sincere and positive that it was hard for me to look her in the eye. Suddenly I felt bad about the whole Santa thing.

"Well, I think Santa can only deal in toys." I was hoping that would work.

It did.

"Oh, okay." Her deflated little voice made me so sad. Extra hugs and kisses were in order.

I wish I could give her something so seemingly simple--a photograph. But even if I wanted to ever help her find her birth mother, it would be impossible. There are just too many abandoned children in China and too many Chinese birth parents who are scared to death of their government to ever step forward and admit that they abandoned a child, even if they had no choice in the first place. In fact, there was a family a couple years ago whose adopted Chinese daughter had a rare blood disease (or something like this)that could only be treated with some kind of transfusion from a birth parent or sibling, so they went to China in search of her birth family. They went to the province and city where she was found and even outside of that vacinity. They put out all kinds of bulletins and ads, officials tried to help, and the family looked diligently for quite some time. No one ever stepped forward. And when I say NO ONE, I mean absolutely NO ONE. I honestly don't know what happened to the little girl, but I hope the family found some other way to help her. I hope. And I consider myself incredibly lucky that my little girl only feels that she needs a picture of her birth mother.