Tuesday, June 6, 2017

“Blessings arrive in unexpected packages…” ~Tony Snow

The Chinese Adoption Is Complete…

Hello Everyone,

Today was a day of paperwork…necessary, but not terribly exciting sorry to say. The good news is that the adoption is done in China and tomorrow we can apply for Lucas’s Chinese passport. The bad news is that we have to drive 4 ½ hours to his home area to apply for it so we will be leaving the hotel at 5:30 a.m. tomorrow! Please forgive us if we don’t get a post off tomorrow night. I’m not sure how late we will be getting in as we are visiting his orphanage which is 1 ½ hour past the police station where we apply for his passport. We anticipate about 12 hours just in driving tomorrow without the passport and orphanage visit time.

So our morning was spent at the Civil Affairs Office. Thankfully that time went faster than yesterday so we were able to come back to the hotel for a while, talk with the family at home and get some lunch before leaving for the notary office. There was a fun moment as we were leaving the Civil Affairs office when the guide told the officer we had nine children…surprised doesn’t quite cover her expression or exclamation of shock…way outside the norm in China! The notary office this afternoon took a bit longer than expected since they had my passport number wrong on the paperwork and had to redo it, but it wasn’t too bad. It let us have some people watching time which is always entertaining.

After doing some gift prep for tomorrow while the boys watched the bear cartoon again (I think it is on multiple times a day), we headed out for dinner and tried another restaurant. It was an entertaining experiment since we cooked our own meat over a mini barbeque in the middle of our table. It was a good reminder of how differently the Chinese culture views meat though. The order of pork ribs looked like four half slices of bacon and the shrimp order was two shrimp with a few veggies and so on. We had plenty of food all said and done, but it certainly was different than in the states. The best moment was when I asked Lucas to chew with his mouth closed. I had let it go until tonight, but decided it was time to try. His look was priceless. I so wish I had my camera ready at that moment. The sheer disbelief, though willingness to obey, is really indescribable. He seemed to shrug internally and off he went chewing with his mouth closed even though he must have thought I was crazy. Wouldn’t I be lucky if all the changes and learning to come go this easily? One can always hope!

My most precious “Lucas Moment” so far happened today. He has started to talk a bit...a clear mimic of words like tree and apple in the morning, moving to actually saying a few things in Chinese, to saying “mama” to get my attention this afternoon when he wanted me to look at what he was doing. That moment will be forever in my heart. He was taking pictures of Jonathan and I on his phone and then doctoring them with an app to make then silly. It was definitely the highlight of my day to hear that clear “mama” to get me to look. The interesting thing is that he still is not talking to the guide or to the Civil Affairs officer. I don’t think they think he really can, but he can once he gets comfortable enough. I wonder how long it will take to get past being overwhelmed by all his siblings when we get home…grin.

Celebrating Today,

Brandy, Jonathan & Lucas