China Day FIfteen - Paperwork and Napping (We're Living Large!)

I think all the hotel employees who are on the American holiday schedule are back to work. Today, two hotel people came to visit us at breakfast and there was a handwritten note and teddy bear from guest services in our room when we came back from breakfast.  Plus, the breakfast staff were also all over us this morning.  There are at least ten staff manning the buffet and each one must have offered to help me ten times.  When the main breakfast man asked me, “How are you this morning?” for the 100^th time, I finally answered truthfully, “Well, I’m holding a $25 bowl of bran flakes.  I’m not really sure.”

We met this morning at 9am to drive back to the same building where we got ZiXuan and process the paperwork.  We had to answer a few questions, sign about ten pieces of paper, hand over the $5,500 “donation,” and about another $1,000 in other fees (notary, birth certificate, and I can’t remember what else, which is pitiful, since I’ve done it twice now) and now she is ours.  All that is left is to wait for the passport.  And so we wait….

The same two women who handed ZiXuan off to me were in the lobby.  I was a little worried when we saw them, that she might start to cry and tug me over thinking they were the ticket back to her foster mother, but she didn’t  (phew!).   There were five other families who adopted that day and we had to wait almost an hour until it was our turn.  It was oppressively hot inside the building, so we finally went outside to wait.  The administration building is also a senior citizen’s center so there was a really nice garden/courtyard where the kids could play.   This was the first time ZiXuan let me put her down since we got her.  She actually walked next to me and held my hand.  She also walked up to some of the other kids to watch them play.  She is still terrified of the boys, but they were able to get pretty close to her by subtle perseverance. 

 

 

The only way to get two children out of China is to adopt special needs kids.  This was fine with us. We prefer special needs children, knowing that they will have the more difficult end in their native country.  ZiXuan’s “special need” is that she has only one hand.  Her right forearm is only a few inches long and she has about half a hand.  I consider this to be fantastically minor.  I lived practically one-handed during my many baby-holding years and I’m back there right now, since ZiXuan is such a Cling-on.  It can be done!

Anyway, we got back to the hotel about lunch time and we all slept the whole afternoon.  No one really moved until 5:00, when we finally went to the finer mall (four stories, with a movie theater and ice skating rink) for dinner.  We hit a Korean restaurant again and they gave us a private room.  These are so nice!  I wish American restaurants would pick up this trend.   After that, Bill took three of the older kids ice skating.   The entire perimeter of the rink was lined with observant Chinese.  I don't know how he does it.  All that staring would have driven me nuts.

 

I was going to stay and watch too, but it was hard to get QingBei to sit still while the others were skating and ZiXuan was falling asleep.  Plus, it is a pain to be always scanning for photographers.  I don’t mind them photographing me, but they have no business taking pictures of QingBei.  I just don’t like it.  So, Matt and I took the girls back to the room.  Matt (my 15 yo) was great about this.  He wanted to go ice skating, but he knew I would have a hard time walking/carrying both of the little ones back.  It’s about a 1/3 mile walk back to our hotel and there are electric mopeds everywhere.  Plus, QingBei is just a walking electron.  She is all over the place, all the time.  I thought everyone would be up late, but we all fell asleep right away.