Trip to China
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Tuesday, August 19, 2008 Another joyful and full day! The day that Eva became legally ours and we became a Forever Family of 5. Monday night Eva slept until about 5:30 am and woke to suck down a full bottle of formula thickened with rice cereal. Daniel and I are watching every drop she drinks because, while she is perfectly proportioned and just beautiful, it is now time for her to gain and grow. All of the parents with older children have noted that none of the babies seem to be demanding their bottle -- if I produce a bottle and she is hungry she will suck it down greedily and with gusto. But there is no or little demand, so "demand feeding" does not work exactly and she seems to have endless patience while we sterilize the water, prepare the bottles and cool them back down to warm so she can drink (the babies drink their formula warm in China, and they will refuse cold bottles). That kind of patience is new for all of us experienced parents and our heart goes out knowing that somewhere along the way each baby learned not to demand but to wait for the bottle. Then again, Jiangyue does have definite opinions about when she does not want to eat and she will shake her head no vigorously if a bottle is offered while she is busy or not hungry. So no hoarding or gorging either which is a good sign. After bottle and getting dressed we went to breakfast and began to see the other families too and to compare notes. Like several others Eva does not appear at all familiar with a spoon and did not want to taste even congee (rice porridge) at the table or even bits of banana -- later I learned that she has not had any solids yet. She is 12 months but in many ways more like the size she wears in clothes (6 months) and so some work likes ahead of us learning what a spoon is and how one eats off it and that it is fine to put one's hands in food and then put your hands to your mouth. My strong impression is that kind of experimenting with foods could not be allowed in her orphanage and you understandably wanted to discourage babies putting things in their mouth and like many other things Eva seems to be very serious about observing what she was taught. So there will be some relearning but that will come and for now, we do have those delicious bottles and I look forward to switching gradually to an upgraded formula. The whole morning was spent back at the Civil Affairs Office and at the Notary's office. Before our adoption interview, we had a fair amount of time to meet the nannies from Beiliu orphanage and our guides helped translate answers to questions. One of the nannies seemed to know Yue well and agreed with me that Yue has not been drinking the full bottles that are offered and does not eat any solid foods yet. We saw her laugh and go to the nannies. But just as soon as she was in their arms she turned right back to us and seemed very happy to come right back to us and to stay with us. So there was comfort with the nannies, familiarity, recent memory, but no particular attachment that I could see and, with her very curious brain -- staring out the window of the bus, examining each toy happily, singing out loud especially for her bath -- she seems ready to come with us without a second thought. Of course, she would also go off with any of the other families in our group too I am sure but that exclusive attachment will come -- she seems perfectly ready for it -- and we are ready to show her that we are her parents and her brothers are her brothers forever. So we answered the adoption official's questions, Jiangyue gave her footprint on the official document, we exchanged gifts with everyone, and thanked the nannies and orphanage director as much as we could convey and were off to our new life. Highlights of the day: seeing Eva laugh out loud for the first time while we lifted her in the air, realizing how much she craves vestibular stimulation so bouncing her, rocking her, helping her jump and swing, doing the baby bop dance to get her to sleep for naps and bed, and that bath, We also saw a Nanning doctor who had seen her in July and he pronounced her in good health and glowed with happiness over how much her skin has improved the past month and prescribed some additional ointments to continue that process, Now she is sleeping and we are exhausted, We miss Louis and Nathaniel so much and talk about them all the time. Good night. Colette and Daniel P.S. We have not had much opportunity yet to write about other aspects of the trip to China including the scenery, cities, people and food (not to mention the Olympics). Hopefully if we get more sleep, and cut down on the visits to government offices, we will be able to do so. In the meantime, at least regarding food, the breakfast buffets at the hotels are a great mix of Chinese and American options, sometimes mixed with European or Japanese favorites. Today, along with my fried eggs and yogurt, I tried out the sauteed beef stomach. On the bottom floor of our hotel in Nanning is a restaurant that has no menus, and instead has pictures of about 200 different kinds of Chinese food on the wall to choose from. Our CCAI guides Michael and Hannah are there to help translate what the items are, but we have done some selecting based upon our educated guesses of looking at the pictures. Overall we have done pretty well with that method. I did promise Michael that tomorrow I would sample the deep-fried chicken feet. I'm hoping they will taste a little bit like doughnuts. Our dinners in Nanning have mostly been wonton-noodle-soup-to-die-for delivered by room service, with mini-Kit Kat bars that they bring every night to the rooms for dessert. Not too shabby!

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