Day 4 - Monday

We woke up bright and early this morning.  The kids were actually awake at about 4 or 5 am.  They'd all fallen asleep about 7 the night before.  We had an early appointment back at the same building we were at the day before so it worked out well, in that it wasn't hard to get everyone up.  Everyone except me who didn't sleep well at all.  Between Josh snoring and two babies between us, both with colds, I was up off and on all night long.  My inner clock is way messed up right now!

We all got showered and dressed and headed back down to the breakfast buffet with G in tow.  We had been getting a lot of stares and pointing fingers but it was tripled now that I was carrying around a chubby little Chinese baby.  Most Chinese people do not know international adoption even exists, so to see this very large (to them) American family with a Chinese baby is very confusing and curious.  They're not rude at all.  Just curious.  When we're out with our guide she ends up answering a lot of questions about why we have this Chinese baby.  It's pretty funny to watch.  One person will ask Celine (our guide) a question about us and several others, not even in the same group, will gather around and start asking questions too.  It's not long before we've drawn a crowd.  You can tell Celine doesn't really want to answer the questions and she looks like she's trying to ignore them most of the time.  She's been a guide for adoptive families for 10 years now so she knows how this works.  She probably doesn't want to answer the questions because it just invites more and she has other things to do.  It's also funny to be out with all the family and see people physically count all the children.  Then they'll look to someone else in shock and hold up five fingers like it's the craziest thing in the world!  We are going to blow some serious minds once we get E!  Hahaha.  

G's breakfast of congee and scrambled eggs.  I gave her a little bit of orange juice and she was NOT a fan.  She makes the best faces when she doesn't like something.  Very similar to giving a baby a lemon in America.  She has probably never had orange juice before.  

S doesn't actually eat all this food, just butters it all up.  He's never been good eater and with the limited number of normal-to-him looking things to eat he's definitely not eating much here.  We still have lots of American snacks and have found a few things he likes here.  

 

Sorry, I digress. . . So after breakfast, which the kids have totally gotten the hang of now and head straight for plates full of pancakes and bacon, we loaded up the van and headed back to the government building.  G fell asleep while we were waiting for the van.  

I was hoping that since it was Monday and a working day they'd have the air conditioner on but no such luck.  Celine explained that this is summer vacation for all the children and many people were out on vacation so they had the air conditioner off again.  Ugh.  I think it was hotter today at 9 am than it was at 4 pm yesterday!  

G's nanny and the adoption coordinator from her orphanage arrived and G was SO happy to see them.  Her little face just lit up when Lily walked in.  I immediately gave G to Lily and let her stay with Lily the entire appointment.  

We were there for a good hour or so.  I knew that this would be the last time Lily and G would have to spend together and even though G won't remember it, Lily will.  I hope she knows how grateful we are for all the love and care she gave to G.  When you chose to adopt you really have no idea of the conditions your child was raised in and lived in up until the came to your family.  G is so healthy and happy and we could not be more thankful for that.  There are many, many, many children in orphanages here that you could not say that about.  What a blessing!  So Lily and G played together and hugged and had some special time.  Lily had also brought a few gifts for G - a little water cup with a straw (she was concerned about G not getting enough water to drink in this heat and wanted us to be careful of heatstroke) and some little hair clips for her.  So sweet.  

The kids hung out while we did all the official stuff.  

Josh and I had an interview with a civil affairs agent (I think that's what he was called - a government worker, anyway) and then signed a bunch of papers.  Then we had to place our thumbprints over our signatures so we had Smurf thumbs after that.  

They also stamped G's footprint on some of the forms.  The lady holding the stamp pad is our guide, Celine.  The other lady holding G is the adoption coordinator from her orphanage.  

Her little foot fills up that box!  Her feet are actually very small.  All the shoes I brought for the girls don't even come close to fitting her!  She's not walking yet so it's not really a problem.  I may have to brave a Chinese shoe store for E if they don't fit her either though!   

Then we got to wait for a little while until the notary showed up and then we did the same thing with her except without the fingerprints or footprint.  We showed Lily and the other orphanage lady (I never got a name!) our paper that told all about our family.  We had a friend translate it into Chinese so we could whip it out and show all the curious people.  Our guide and the nanny started laughing and being kind of shy about the paper.  When we asked them what was wrong they said the girls' names had been translated incorrectly and actually meant something really bad in Chinese!  Our friend did all the translation EXCEPT their names - Josh used google translate for that.  Guess that was a bad idea!  We ended up cutting off that part of the paper as to not offend anyone else!

Then we got to wait some more for the head honcho government guy (yeah, that's his official name!) to show up.  We had to pay him (for what, I'm not sure because he wasn't there for any of this!) and get his signature before we could leave.  I busted out the lollipops since the kids were beyond bored by this point.  

The big kids went to sit by the one little fan they had in the office because it was stinkin' hot.  

 He finally showed up a little after 10 a.m. and we got his signature on the forms that said she is officially ours!  

Once we received that paper Lily gave G back to us willingly.  I was all for letting her keep G with her until we walked down to the van and had to take her with us but that piece of paper meant something, I guess.  She insisted I take G, who came to me OK but definitely wanted to stay with Lily.  We all walked out of the building together and said our goodbyes in the parking lot.  We gave Lily one last hug and told her thank you many times.  

Then we were off to the police station to apply for G's passport.  We sat in the waiting area while our guide did all the work.  :)  Josh walked around with S and I'm sure he was quite the entertainment to those around.  

Easy peasy.  Then we headed back to the hotel for a lazy day.  

We all rested for a little bit and Josh took the boys swimming while Maddie and I hung out and G napped.  

The boys had a lot of fun swimming and C came back saying that he could swim underwater!  

We ended up not having any lunch this day and just snacked but by 5 pm we were all pretty hungry.  Josh had the great idea that we should all walk down to the restaurant Celine had shown him the night before and eat dinner there.  So we packed everyone and everything up and headed down the street.  We walked and walked and walked and then had to turn around because we had walked and walked and walked right past the restaurant.  Argh!  It was at least 98 degrees outside and I was dying carrying around the chunk in the baby carrier.  We finally found the restaurant and it only went downhill from there.  The poor waitress could speak a little English but not much and we obviously don't speak any Chinese.  Josh kept pointing towards the back of the restaurant where there was more seating and she finally gave in.  I don't know if this was a special part of the restaurant they don't like to use much or what but she was very reluctant to sit us there.  There was no room for our huge group in the front where everyone else was though.  She brought us a menu and Josh found a picture of what we wanted to order.  He pointed and told her "5" while holding up five fingers.  She was shocked and started laughing and looking over at the other workers who had come to sit in same room and watch the show.  Josh nodded and told her "5" again and then pointed at each of us while counting to show her that there were five us who needed a meal.  She was baffled and kept shaking her head and holding up one finger.  Josh kept disagreeing with her though and she finally gave in.  She was so funny though.  I guess no one had ever ordered that much before or something.  Then she walked off into the kitchen, which was only a short distance away from us, and we could hear her laughing and telling everyone about this crazy family ordering 5!  We realized that this was not going to end well and decided we'd better just take this to go as we were already drawing a crowd and it would probably only get worse.  So when she came back by Josh showed her the written Chinese our guide had given him for "take out" and she really flipped out.  She ran back to the kitchen and she started yelling and laughing and making a big deal out of it.  I don't know what she was saying but I can imagine.  By this time the kids are all exhausted and super hot (very little air conditioning in the restaurant) and I was about to melt along with the baby.  R had actually fallen asleep sitting at the table while all of this was going on!   Josh and I decided that I would take G and M would take S in the stroller back to the hotel and he and the other boys would wait for the food and bring it back to us.  In the end, we didn't really need to order five of the dish.  Two or three would probably have been good but one would definitely not have been enough.  Oh well, it was still super cheap!  When we opened up the containers we were surprised to find cupcake sprinkles all over the food.  So weird!  It was good though.  

We had a lazy evening and everyone crashed pretty early again.  I kicked Josh out of our room and made him sleep with the older kids while I kept the little ones with me.  I slept so much better without having to worry about getting him to roll over all night long.  I love him dearly but that man can snore!!!  Holy cow. G slept well again and so did S.  I slept better as well.  Not sure I can say the same for the big kids who had to sleep with the chainsaw their room.  ;)