Big Honor

Maybe we are spoiled, but we aren't complaining, Laine blessed us by sleeping from 9 last night to 7am this morning.  We couldn't get her to go to sleep in our arms and in our silliness we didn't even try to lay her down in the crib!  Well that's all it took.  She fussed maybe a few seconds when we put her in the crib but pretty quickly relaxed.  For us, we still flinched at every little sound she made.  We still slept pretty well though.  Laine is doing very well and eating pretty much everything we put in front of her.  The only issue is we are waiting for the first number 2!  Been plenty of number 1, but nothing of the solid fashion so far.  She had some prunes for dinner tonight so maybe that will move things along.

 

Today in the official business category we returned to the Civil Affairs office to receive the completed adoption papers.  There were two other families not with us getting their documents too, they were from Spain.  We found out the U.S. and Spain adopt the most kids from China by far.  As recently as the last few years the Henan Province where we are only adopted 1 or 2 kids a year.  The authorities here just didn't think it was a good thing to do.  Well our adoption agency has worked had to get that thought changed and our group adopted 8 special needs kids today.  So for that reason or that he just had the time, the director of the adoption authority for the whole province came down to hand over the documents personally.  We were told this just doesn't happen!  So as of that moment we are the official parents of Lainey in the eyes of China, in other words we can't give her back!!! 

 

This afternoon Christina went to the Lotus center, like a bigger Wal-Mart, to do some shopping with the group.  We got an extra suitcase to take home things for Lainey, and some green bean cakes!  Apparently the foster mom said those are one of Lainey's favorites.  Not sure whats in it yet, but we have them for her.  Tomorrow I am going to go up to Anyang where Laine is from and take some pictures.  We want to get her finding spot, where she was left in front of a hospital, and I might be able to get in the orphanage even.  We'll see.  One other family is adopting a child from there but I'm not sure if they will go with or not.  We were going to take a train, but we can't be sure we will get a ticket back since we have to purchase it there and with the spring festival and Chinese New Year approaching its difficult to get tickets so we have to rent a driver and a translator to take us.  Will be great pics to have for the future to show her where she came from. 

 

We found one fun way to make Laine giggle and almost laugh, for some reason a bottle of cheerios being shaken against her belly elicits a good giggle.  So that is where we stand. 

We head to Guangzhou on Friday.  Thanks for all the great comments.