We woke up on day two at 5:00 in the morning to a baby who made one cry and just was sitting up in the bed. That was different we thought. Trying to figure out her new surroundings she just wanted to be held by mommy.
So we sat around a while, then phone calls started on skype. Catching up on the phone calls with family. Everyone wanting to look at our little baby. The biggest news we had at the moment was the clothes we brought were all too big. The little girl is came to us in a six months top and three months pants. It didn't seem to matter what we picked up, it was all too big. We did find a few pj's we brought would work, but not much of anything else. It is so hard to believe that she is so tiny. Not any bigger than the numbers we had at first. We put her in an outfit we brought, but it was way too big. We rolled the pants down three times and the legs up, but it just kept slipping off her tiny waist.
In the morning we went for more paperwork and what turned out to be an interview at the adoption office. This I was not fully aware of, and or necessarily prepared for. We arrived at the office building and they had not fully opened yet. Seems as if we got Lexi one day after everyone else did so we were the only couple to do paperwork that day. We went into the first office sat down and were followed in by a nice lady reviewing our paperwork. She asked us how we were doing and how the baby was. Turns out, this was our day to make things formal. She asked us to sign the paper and Lexi is now officially ours!!
Next step a family picture. This was interesting. We walk in the room, one tall chair in the middle for the baby and a chair on either side for Wanda and I. We all sat down. The took Lexi's bunny away to take the picture, and then it all went down hill. He lip stuck out, tears starting to well up, she reached over for her mommy. We sat her back down.. but again reaching for mommy. We couldn't distract her long enough to get a picture made. So we stand up and try it again. We hold her up high and get a picture taken. Now another one, because I am too tall for the picture. So I am squatting down, Lexi is being held between the two of us and another snap. All done.
Now to another room to meet the notary and another set of questions. Why did we want to come to China to adopt? How are we going to take care of her? These are things we have talked about and discussed between the two of us and I am sure we have put them on paper forms at some point, but I didn't really know how to sum it up at the moment. I don't think we could have had a wrong answer, but yet I was nervous and not sure if the answers we gave were right. After a few minutes he said we were all done. That is it. No more paperwork.. at least for today.
Back at the hotel, we decided on a day to lay low. After so much rushing around, or at least that is what it felt like, we needed some downtime. Our guide was going to come back around and take us to dinner on the island. We hung out in the room for a little bit and then off to find some lunch on our own and maybe a few clothes for the baby. We got her in the stroller and off we went!
We walk down to Lucy's and grab a bite to eat. The park is amazing. People are scattered about doing all kinds of things. The most interesting are the groups playing hackysack. They are everywhere and people just join in at will. We order and they bring Lexi's congee out first. Congee is a rice soup dish and this one has bits of chicken in it. She ate almost all of it. Such a good baby, it is hard to believe. She seems to be adjusting so well. We finish and run into another family. They are on there way out of Guangzhou and let us know a few places to shop and eat. In the shops it is hard to find anything in her size. Clothes range from small to xxl in the baby section and sometimes they are numbered. Rarely do we see anything sized by months. So one of us holds her and the other holds the clothes up to see if they look right. A hard process and we do end up with two outfits by the end of the day. We are also not good at negotiating. At the moment we just pay the asking price... perhaps we will get better. I don't like shopping anyway, and the added hassle of price haggling just doesn't appeal to me.
For dinner our guide takes us to a Thai restaurant. We both can say that we have definately tried more foods on this trip than we thought we would have. It is helpful to have a big appetite at dinner. There are always lots of plates to choose from. We had chicken, beef, rice, eggplant, broccoli and maybe another dish. We tried all of it and even tried using the chopsticks. The chopsticks are typically plastic here and it is much harder to use them, so they brought us forks as well. The little miss was even a delight at dinner. So quiet and calm, and the she shows her wild side. A true budle of joy... and it is so amazing to see.
As day two winds down, we share our little miss again with family on over skype. It is very nice to be able to talk with everyone and see them. We hope that she will be able to recognize some of them or at least feel comfortable from hearing their voices already. She doesn't really notice the pictures... mostly they get to see her and we get a little bit of home over here.
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