December 12, 2007

Room 1037, White Swan Hotel, Guangzhou, China

I got a little time that I didn't expect. Great! I am really enjoying writing you and was getting disappointed after 2 days of not writing. I just laid you down for your nap. You and I did that yesterday as well. You lay down so nicely. No fuss, no resistance. You just lay there as you wind down, rub your face a little, and suddenly you are asleep. You're so beautiful and peaceful lying there.

Yesterday was another eventful day. You woke up happy and smiling. I was surprised that you were the last one to wake up. Having your surroundings completely changed, experiencing the trauma of leaving everyone you know, and spending the night with nobody you know should be too much. Either we somehow convinced you that we were ok or you were just so spent emotionally and physically that your body just couldn't fight it. I tend to suspect that latter but take comfort in the former only because of how smooth it's gone thus far. I also take comfort in God's grace as I know all good things come from God, including you.

Our first breakfast as a family went well. You clearly let us know what you like and dislike. You like eggs, period! You liked sausage and bacon. You liked chicken nuggets. You liked rice noodles. You liked the first couple of bites of watermelon and cantaloupe, but only the first couple. There was a muffin that you ate some. You clearly did not like cabbage. As a cabbage connoisseur I thought the cabbage was excellent. You promptly moved it off your plate. An attempt to feed some to you from my fork was met with no debate, only your back. You continued to amaze us with all that you can do. For example, last night it was the bathroom and bathing. This morning you showed expert control of a very large and heavy fork. The orphanage representative told your mom you had used spoons. You scooped and stabbed with precision, had great aim, and if something dripped on your chin, you never broke stride. you smoothly slid the edge of the fork up your chin toward your bottom lip just like an experienced mom would do when feeding her infant baby food. Your information form from the orphanage said you only drank almond drink. This morning you drank milk, hurray! Almond drink would be hard to come by back home. In general you did not show much like for vegetables.

Mid-morning to lunch was spent back at Civil Affairs to complete "interviews" and adoption notarization. This made the adoption official, you were ours forever! Grace and Kathy explained on the bus ride there that 2 interviews would occur. 99% of the time these were done by females who would be brief, ask mostly the same questions, and be very nice. Only rarely would an interview be conducted by a male. If a male interviewed us, he was a bureaucrat. This meant he had to make his "office," or position, known. He would ask the same questions as well, and then some. He may not be as nice or brief. We were told all of our answers needed to be simple, brief, and kind. For example, when asked "why did you adopt Chinese baby," an appropriate answer would be "we like Chinese culture," "we think Chinese babies are cute," or "to help the babies." This goes back to the importance of appearance in Chinese culture. Well to make a long story short, guess who got interviewed by the bureaucrat, we did! It wasn't too bad but he did ask more and wasn't as nice. When I told him we adopted from China "to help the children" he didn't give me a warm, fuzzy feeling. I think to say "to help the children" was to admit there was a problem. He might have preferred "we like Chinese culture" as that shines a positive light on everything. Your mom quickly added the "Chinese culture" answer to mine and that made it okay. The bureaucrat asked at least 3 times why I was adopting a girl when I already had 3 girls. "Why not a boy?" I jokingly answered I knew how to do girls. A boy would be something I knew nothing about. He did smile at that. When it was done, we were yours and you were ours. Thank you God! My You be glorified!