Paperwork Day

Today was on of those days where we had a lot of paperwork to take care of!!

Lilianna had a great night and slept from 9:00pm last night to 7:00 this morning.  She just hates not to be held and if she is put down for even a second, big tears stream down her face and she has the saddest sobs.  Diaper changes today were filled with huge tears and soulful cries!  So when she woke up this morning, her first morning with us, she was pretty lost and confused and cried until we rushed to her side to pick her up.  Once she is being held there are a few moments of smaller sobs and then she cuddles in and quietly watches what is going on around her.

She also sucks her thumb and has a large sore on the knuckle of her thumb as she is very serious about the whole thing.  On Together Day, that thumb did not leave her mouth at all.  I have a couple of teething rings with me so I gave them to her and it worked but not in the way that I had expected.  She took one ring in one hand and the other ring in the other hand and held them there, quite rigidly and just kept looking at them.  They appeared to be the most fascinating things she had ever seen!  She would not let go of them and if you tried she had a very determined look on her face and she held on to them very tightly. But she did not put her thumb in her mouth while she held them.  Ali told me that when she woke up this morning, she was sucking her thumb again and he found her teething rings in the bottom of her crib as she had let them go during the night.  So he picked one of them up and held it up for her.  She looked at it with wide eyes and took it with the non-sucking hand.  Then he offered her the other one.  Apparently she paused, stared at it briefly and then took her thumb out of her mouth and took the ring into her thumb sucking hand.  She then proceeded to hold on to them all day again today!  Hilarious.  If you look closely  at the photos, you can see them in her hands.

We rushed upstairs for breakfast and then downstairs to the lobby for 8:30 to do the paperwork at the Adoption Centre.  We signed all the forms to finalize Lilianna's adoption and then we went back onto the bus to go to the Notary to do more paperwork.  Back onto the bus and returned to the hotel briefly for lunch and then back on the bus to start the paperwork for Lilianna's Chinese passport.  Jazzy and Kiora had such an huge day today that we took them to the McDonalds across the street from the hotel.  They had a great time.  The passport should be ready by Wednesday, which triggers our trip to Beijing on Thursday so we can start her immigration visa back to Canada.  Phew.

After the Passport office we went to a store, well not sure if it was more of a labarynth or a store with carts to get your grocieries, but the store has two floors and no elevator or escalator.  You arrive at the bottom of a long set of concrete stairs and there was a group of  ladies that decend upon you and lift your cart up the stairs for you.   We bought more bottles, and I got her a soother to try to let her thumb heal, chips and various snacks.  Quite the shopping adventure.

Jazzy had the chance to stay here with Nanna Lee and hangout with her instead of sitting inside yet another boring conference room while we did paperwork. She was great with her sister today, so helpful and caring of her.  She helped me wash all of Lily's bottles and paraphanalia this afternoon and then played with her for a long time and was very gentle and caring with her.  It was so great to see.  Curious about how long it will last!!

Well that was pretty well the end of our day.  We have a down day tomorrow (Saturday) so may spend most of it just relaxing and letting Jazzy hang out at the pool and maybe wander over to the Friendship store close by. 

Sunday we go to visit the Orphanage and Monday we get a guided tour around the city. We will see how much of the touring or sightseeing that we do.  It is so unbelieveably hot here and the smog is very thick.

take care,

sue