July 20, 2010

Our first night together and Adoption Day!

First, I just need to say that we have ourselves a Daddy's girl.  She really only relies on me for food but other than that Mark is the go-to guy for everything else.  She lets me hold her for very short periods of time, but goes primarily to Mark.  It is a bit hard on the feelings that she prefers Mark, but I am just thankful she is attaching to one of us.  Our first night together went good. We had some tears when we we put her in the crib at 8pm and she held onto Mark finger for a good 35 minutes until she fell asleep., Every time he tried to move it she would cry so there he sat until she finally drifted off to sleep.  To say she is wrapped around his finger is an understatement.  She slept all night, not a peep from our girl until 6am He told me today that I will need to learn how to make surfboards because he's going to become a stay-at-home dad.

Today Mali officially became ours according to The People's Republic of China.  We went back to the Hangzhou Federal Building and filled out some more paper work and took our oath and officially become Mali's parents.  It was actually really nice the way they made it special.  We recieved a beautiful certificate and Mali was presented a stuffed Panda Bear.  We then started our four hour trip to Wenzhou, the city of Mali's orphanage.  We have some business to take care of at their Federal building, apply for her passport and then we will be done with paperwork.

Our little girl is having a tough time, and has been grieving pretty hard.  She has some good moments but then it hits her that she is in a new situation and just burst out into tears.  It is really hard to watch when you know there is really nothing you can do but show her that we love her.  She is the bravest little girl I have ever met.  We were eating dinner tonight at our hotel tonight and I thought to myself that how ironic it is that three days ago Mali was an orphan getting her basic needs met by a caregiver and tonight she is sitting in a posh hotel with a mom and a dad, eating french fries with a chandelier in the lobby bigger than her house in the USA, and just minutes before 4 housekeeping attendants fussed over setting up her crib with freshly ironed linens.  Oh, my girl is going to have a great life.....that I promise.