Our Kung Fu Fighter

Today was a momentous day, our last hurdle was cleared and now we just wait for our visa to come home!  In a surprise move the U.S. Consulate here had to move some of the process up a day because of some in-house meetings they are having on Friday.  So instead of going to finish the final paperwork and take the oath on Thursday we had to do it Wednesday afternoon.  Now it would have been nice to know this sooner and change our flights around, but its going to be real expensive to do it so we'll stick with what we have.  Normally we have been traveling on one bus with just our travel group but today since the consulate changed things we piled on to 2 bigger buses with many parents from other groups and headed to the offices about 30 minutes away.  The visa office used to be here on Shamian Island but moved to a bigger building since they have so much traffic.  Most of the traffic is not adoptions, its Chinese nationals immigrating to the U.S.,  over 20,000 last year. Adoptions are down to under 3000 from a high point a few years ago over 7000.  The consulate official also told us last year for the first time ever adoptions of special needs children surpassed healthy children for the first time.  So as it ended up today over 60 families converged on the consulate at once to take the oath.  We weren't allowed cameras inside so I don't have many photos to add today.  The consulate is in a large building shared with many other businesses so the outside doesn't even have U.S. flag or anything!  So no scenes from the movies with people running to the arms of burly soldiers just inside the big iron gates!  We had to go up five escalators to reach security and its like flying! Take off shoes and even belts!  We were told this part could take hours so bring a change of diapers, baby food, etc. but nothing electronic, no cameras or phones.  As it turned out we were one of the first families called to go to window 21.  There was a line of windows, 17-23.  Like going to the ticket office, heavy glass window and we talk through a speaker-mic system.  We just showed our passports and signed one piece of paper.  Then sat down.  After all the families visited a window the official came out and administered the oath to everyone at once, saying everything we submitted for the adoption was true and we were done in not even an hour!  The bus ride there and back took longer!  Tomorrow our adoption agency reps will go back and get our passport and visa for Laine and a brown envelope.  What is in the brown envelope we don't know!  We are told DO NOT OPEN IT.  Apparently it must remained sealed and will be opened by the immigration officer when we land back in the U.S.,  Laine will officially become a naturalized citizen of the United States at that time. 

 

As for Laine she is still wowing people with her petite body and cute face.  She will occasionally go wild and kick her feet and swing her arms and even shake her head so hard it looks like it must hurt!  But she just blows some bubbles with her lips and smiles on.  One local worker in a store said she was practicing her kung fu moves when she saw her do it!  I just wish she would quit them right now in the crib and go to sleep, so Christina and I could!

 

Computer Bobbles

Well after spending an hour with tech support last night which still left us with no internet connection, it is finally working this morning.  We are patiently waiting in our room for a call from our guides from our adoption agency who are at the U.S. consulate as I write this.  They are presenting all our documents to be approved to let us bring Laine home to Ohio. They are representing 5 families today. I there are any questions or problems they will give us a call so we have to stay by the phone.  They say they should be finished by noon, but the group from yesterday had to wait until after 1:30 to get the all clear. 

 

So I'm out of my rhythm here and have to back track on what we did yesterday!  Its like work, it moves so quick I can't clearly remember what we did yesterday!  We were able to sleep in yesterday since we didn't have any morning trips.  We walked around the island here to visit a number of shops selling baby things and gifts to take home.  Then we had to hustle back to the hotel for the all important red couch photos!

 

Here at the White Swan Hotel they have an area off the lobby for sitting and meeting and they have big red couches that over look a waterfall and koi pond.  For years all the families staying here gather at some point to take photos here with the new children dressed in traditional Chinese clothing.  We take photos of just the kids then the individual families and then the whole group.  A little hectic with 7 kids under the age of three who have been with their new family for a week!  Add 10 cameras flashing all over and parents fussing over hair and meltdowns are bound to happen!  Cheerios and crackers make a good quick treat to quiet kids for a second long enough to get a picture hopefully with their mouth closed! You will see in the photos we found a cute little size 1 outfit for Lainey and tried to keep a barrette in her hair, you should have been watching the conversation with me at the front desk asking for tape to try to get the darn thing to stay in her hair!  I asked for some tape, the lady kept handing me a stapler!  I think I took 170 pictures in about 20 minutes so I won't subject you to all of them, I took many for other families to send them later.  Who needs the posed ones, the crawling on the floor is so much more fun!  Laine did pretty well. We were able to get a couple smiles of her alone.  In the group settings she was too preoccupied with everything around her.  A couple of the older girls wanted to take pictures holding her and it worked a minute but then the strange hands holding her got old and she wanted us! 

 

*****BREAKING NEWS*******We just got the call our visa for Laine was approved with no questions!  And they changed our schedule slightly, we were supposed to take the oath tomorrow, but the consulate decided to move it up one day and we go there in a couple hours to complete that step.  Then the only remaining item will be to wait for the physical visa to be put in Laine's passport.

 

So now we bring you back to originally scheduled blogging!  After the photos we had a dinner cruise on the Pearl River.  This was our second dinner cruise on a boat, the first was in Maui and we had the same result, we went away hungry! They announced the buffet was open in Chinese, so we missed the starting whistle and ended up at the end of the line.  Plus it was mostly Cantonese food which was another new taste.  We had some good things, not sure what they were, but they were good just too small of portions.  They had really  tasty looking deserts of tarts and finger cakes, but were gone before I got to that side of the table!  Ended up with apple slices.  The boat cruised on the river for about 90 minutes.  A woman stood most of the ride in the front pointing out the landmarks as we went.  She spoke very briefly in english and then in Chinese for the rest of the trip so can't tell you much of what we saw!  But the city here is lit up very well.  Almost every building is outlined in bright lights or maybe the entire side of the building is a flashing ad.  Many people were saying its like Times Square and Las Vegas on steroids.  It is very neat to look at.  Again I took way to many photos!

 

Laine is still opening up more.  She laid on her stomach on Christina and played for a good 20 minutes too.  Last week she wouldn't or couldn't lay on her stomach for more than a few seconds.  She will fall asleep in our arms more easily too.  She makes quite a lot of buzzing and blowing noises and seems to be really fascinated by someone whistling.  Well you are pretty up to date now.  I'll add some photos here before we run to lunch.

Don't Have to Buy Christina a Present for a LOONNGG TIME!

On this fine Monday in Guangzhou the clouds are still among us but there were many pearly white smiles today because we visited the Pearl Market!  Most of our group went to the shopping district today.  A wild scene, no cars only foot traffic for 9 blocks.  There were buildings galore of all shops.  About anything you could think of was on sale somewhere if you looked hard enough.  The looking was half the fun.  At first blush the malls look like a traditional large malls with an open center atrium and a ring of shops around the perimeter and escalators at both ends.  The surprise here is there are several perimeters!  Not all the shops look over the center atrium opening.  You had to venture off the center ring through side hallways to find the best stores it seemed.  Our guides knew of a few pearl stores that are essentially wholesalers.  So I guess jewelry stores  around the world would come to them and buy in bulk.  And bulk they had.  They had bags and bags of pearls of all shapes, colors and sizes just laying on the floor!  Some of the better stuff was on display but it seemed you could walk quietly away with a bag from the floor and no-one would miss it there were so many!  After about 90 minutes the group was finally finished picking over this one store.  It was sort of funny, the workers had just opened and were really kind of still waking up when all these Americans with strollers and kids in tow walked in and disrupted everything.  I can also tease Lainey in the future, she fell asleep in my arms in a jewelry store, so she must not have a need for any!  Many of the stores must be used to long stays by buyers though, they had couches for the men to sit on, and toys for the kids to play with.  And I don't mean building blocks, they had razor scooters and battery powered cars and trucks the kids could ride and drive up and down the halls! Never seen anything like it!  Who knew one whole mall could be filled for 8 floors with all beads, seriously I don't think there was anything else but beads sold in this entire mall!  We're talking over 400 bead stores all next to each other.  Christina got her mother's day and birthday presents already checked off!  And we bought some nice things for Laine that will be special gifts as she grows up.  The prices were essentially a third of what we would pay at home.

 

The next stop was a DVD store for me. I joked I get a DVD for every pearl she bought!  We found the complete Baby Einstein video collection, some 26 DVDs for Laine for about 40 bucks. Back home it would be hundreds of dollars.  Plus we bought a couple pirated movies for about a dollar 50, movies that just came out over Christmas in the U.S.  Next was McDonald's for lunch.  There were actually two McDonald's right across the circle from one another,  and they were packed.  The whole area was packed with people buying lunch from street vendors and all sorts of restaurants.  We saw a mom feeding herself and her baby with fresh squid on a stick!  You can get all kinds of stuff cooked a stick for easy eating while  you walk or stand because there aren't many places to sit.  Laine had her first happy meal.  Christina was really thrilled with this and took pictures of it and kept the bag and toy! I didn't ask, just kept eating and feeding Laine the pieces of the chicken nuggets and french fries.  She frowned at the first fry, but quickly licked her lips, maybe her first taste of salt, and wanted more!

 

Christina is off doing some final paperwork our guides will take to the U.S. consulate on Wednesday.  We don't have to go in person we were surprised to find out.  Our guides turn in the forms and we have to stay in our room by the phone for about two hours in case there is a problem or question.  We will then go in person on Thursday to the consulate to take the oath pledging something I'm not exactly sure of right now!  Then on Friday we receive Lainey's visa to enter the U.S.  For some reason we aren't allowed to leave the country until after 3pm on the 30th and of course our last flight we would want leaves at 2pm so we have to stay an extra day.  We will fly to Hong Kong on Saturday and spend the night there.  Then fly from Hong Kong to Chicago and then home on Sunday.  Hard to believe we have to spend some much time here and the most time consuming part is the physical placement of Lainey's visa in her passport.  Oh well, its still smoother than a lot of other countries offering adoptions, so that is what we live with.  See you soon.