Day: March 4, 2014

Just before bedtime. 

First off I will say that Amelie is dealing with a little jealousy (which is totally understandable) and we are trying to help her be calm and encourage her to do “big sister” things to help Dani. We are also letting her put on unlimited amounts of glitter lip gloss 🙂 I also don’t think she is getting her usual amount of sleep because of all the excitement and she is a kid that really needs her sleep.

Silly girls cracking themselves up.

The girls woke up at 5 am again and we brought them in the bedroom to color and craft while Dani slept. Dani got up at 5:30 because she pooped and she was all kinds of upset. Mike calmed her down and we just hung out in the room until we could go to breakfast. As soon as I got out her clothes and got her dressed she was so excited and climbed off the bed and took off to explore the hotel room. We hadn’t seen her do anything like that yet. She has been either sitting and playing or having us hold her. It was really cute to watch her, but then she kept going to the door and saying in Chinese what I assume was “Let’s go!” We went down to breakfast and she cried a little in the elevator both ways. She did really well at breakfast and ate a lot of food and she showed us the first thing she didn’t like to eat – congee. And the orphanage docs said she liked it, but they also said that about Amelie and she wouldn’t eat the stuff either. Once we got back from breakfast she was really upset and sad. She just sat on our laps or on the bed next to us. She didn’t want to play with any toys or be played with. She just wanted to hold her shoes in her hands and she seemed really sad. We let her see the girls get a bath and then put some water in the baby tub and gave her a quick sponge bath and she screamed and screamed. Whew. After that she just wanted to sit on Mike’s lap or be near him being mellow.

Can you see the little tear in her eye? And you can barely see the shoe in her hand.

We decided to head over to McDonald’s for lunch and when Mike got the carrier Dani perked right up!!! She reached for him and then turned herself around to back up towards him so he would strap her in. She was trying to help him buckle and remembered to lift her arms up so he could do the top. She was smiling and talking again right away. It was so super sweet! The rain had finally stopped and it wasn’t so cold and we enjoyed our walk. She loved the fries and nuggets which didn’t surprise me since they gave us a photo of her eating at KFC. After lunch we went over to the RT Mart to look for another pair of shoes for her, but they didn’t have any good choices. I picked up another package of wipes and more Oreo flavors we hadn’t tried yet. Once we got back to the hotel room, we put the girls down for a nap and they all slept for 3 hours!

Dani was in better spirits when she woke up and got really excited when I offered her a banana. She was grabbing at it and trying to help me peel it. After she finished that off I took her into the bedroom again and sat her on the bed with me. After a while she wanted to play with the stacking cups again. This went on for more than an hour. She was very intense trying all kinds of combinations and arrangements of the cups. Then Mike played with her for quite a while and I set the big girls up with some travel package Play-Doh we brought along.

She kept moving around until she had the pillows arranged “just so”

Looking for Daddy.

Look at that pooch. I love it!

The rest of the evening was nice, just being a family. We had dinner in the room again and after I changed Dani into her jammies she was sitting on my lap. Then Mike went into the other room and she scooted right off my lap and went looking for him. It was super cute! I got down on the floor so I could snap some photos of her walking around checking out the room. Then she wanted to be back with Mike and soon it was time for bed. It was a very good day for us.

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Now photos for fun:

Socks drying in the bathroom

Every checkout line in China has condoms, gum and snickers.

I feel like the average American would wig out if they had to walk up and pick their chicken out of an open refrigerator like this

This is what was in the bag from the orphanage. It’s so much food that it just made me laugh.

First photo as a family of 5!  

The girls woke up at 5 am and wanted Dani to be awake so bad!!!! But we made them come in the bedroom with us and play quietly until she woke up. Starting at about 6:30 Nadia was reading the clock and giving reports. “6:36, 6:39. 6:45, when is she going to wake up? 7:02, 7:04, 7:06, when is she going to wake up?” It was adorable. By the time Dani woke up we were all dressed and ready to go to breakfast. We got her ready in a hurry and headed down to breakfast because our guide was going to pick us up at 8:30 to do all the paperwork required for Jiangxi province.

Sweet girl at breakfast.

Looking out the window with her big sisters.

After breakfast we grabbed everything we needed for a morning of paperwork and met our guide and the Butler family downstairs. We walked across the street to the Civil Affairs building and we all crammed into the elevator and Dani started to cry. She is not fond of elevators in the first place, but she really didn’t like it jammed full of people. The first thing we did was wait in line to have our family photo taken for the “Red Book” (basically the proof that she is ours) and they took an individual shot of Dani for her Chinese passport.  Then we went into the big room to wait around for more paperwork to be done. All the Jiangxi families that read this will recognize this room. Our experience in this room couldn’t be more different than when we came for Nadia. This time it was really cold with no heat and about four families. Last time it was over 105* outside and jammed with families and screaming kids and no A/C.

I love this photo so much!!!! Dani had a great time walking all around the room with Mike. I filled out our paperwork while Dani and the girls sat with Mike. We promised to love her and never abandon her and to give her an education once we return home. We had to fill out another form telling China why we wanted to adopt her and confirm that the records we received about her were correct. They gave us a porcelain pen holder with some cool artwork on it and we gave the gifts we brought from America. Our guide Maggie returned with our paperwork and our Red Book and we left the building.

Once downstairs and waiting on the van we saw the orphanage director again and Maggie told us that we could ask her any questions. We thanked her for taking such good care of Dani and she thanked us for coming to China to adopt her and give her a good home. She also told us that Dani was very smart and popular and given a lot of love. We asked if Dani was in the orphanage or with a foster family and she said that Dani spent her days at the orphanage and then went home at night with foster parents and five other children to spend the evening and sleep. We were told that the foster families live on the orphanage grounds. I had never heard of anything like that before in all our time in the adoption community and I found that pretty cool. She also told us that there was an email address in our paperwork and asked if would we please email them updates of Dani in the future. Then in typical Louanne fashion (because I was so overwhelmed with gratefulness for our precious girl), I hugged the orphanage director! (This is not common in Chinese culture) She seemed surprised, but hugged me back and laughed.

Our next stop was the notary and they asked us a series of questions to confirm the answers we had given on Gotcha Day. That went really quickly and we all loaded up in the van one more time. Our last stop was the passport office and just one parent and the new child got out and the rest of us waited in the van.

Nadia was cold and sleepy in the van and this was her solution. Once we returned to the hotel we had lunch in one of the restaurants there and found that Dani even likes broccoli. This made Nadia happy because Amelie has never liked it 🙂

The girls played for a little while before having a nap. After their nap time we decided to go to Walmart to get some diapers and more Coke Zero, so we headed out and quickly found it was way too rainy and cold, and that we would need a taxi. Mike put Dani in the carrier and she got so excited!! She was smiling and laughing, and while we were outside for a bit the rain was on her face and she just giggled and laughed like it was the most amazing thing ever. She started to talk and babble and make lots of happy noises. Her little voice is so cute!

Look at that adorable smile!

Mike was playing a little game with her while we waited on the taxi and she just laughed and laughed and laughed. After taking a taxi to Walmart and back we had dinner in the room and got the girls to bed. Dani cried again when we put her in the crib, but Mike sang and I rubbed her belly and she calmed down very quickly.

All day Mike and I were telling each other we couldn’t believe how well she was doing and what a delight it was to see her smiles and laughs. On the taxi ride back to the hotel Nadia said, “This is the best day of my life. I don’t know which one is the worst, but this one is the best!”