29 JUL Post from Hangzhou

Hi, everyone!

We're in Wenzhou now, but will post from our adventures yesterday.

After getting Hannah on Monday morning, we woke up Tuesday to a rainy day. There was a typhoon that hit the coast south of us, but it brought with it lots of rain to our location here. Had found a GREAT exercise park the night before that the kids loved, and had planned to return to it after b-fast, but obviously didn't make it.

M restarting his beard today, as he shaved yesterday so as to not make Hannah recall her first Brough experience as a date with the hairy monster.

Walked around downstairs in the hotel a bit after b-fast, just to burn some energy. There are a couple of cool real estate offices--sounds crazy to me, really--but the kids loved them. Had some intricate models of future developments, with buttons you can push to turn on the lights in the buildings and cars.

Return to hotel room...some kid-on-kid violence (none levelled at Hannah yet, thankfully). M plays Pokemon with C, and M's Articuno romp all over several of C's Pokemon. But the game ends for nap before M is crowned chief Pokemon trainer. Time for that later--kids need naps!

Hannah hasn't really done much today. She didn't do much yesterday, and we parents are starting to get a little concerned, though we don't really mention to each other. She's eaten very little, drunk little, and done nothing at all but cling to us and sleep. She doesn't seem interested in playing, walking, or interacting, and she cries whenever we put her down. She doesn't cry LOUD, though, so we've got that going for us.

The kids just love her, though--too much, probably, as they (esp F) are all in her face and all over her, terrorizing her with kisses and carresses.

At 3, we meet Mr. Liu to head to the civil affairs office--except that the CA folks are at a meeting, so we're "on call." He says we can do whatever we want now, so we decide to drive over to the Pizza Hut again to eat. Between ordering and food arrival, Mr. L tells us we gotta go NOW! Paroxism of activity, payment of bill, and mgr writes us a note which hopefully means we can come back and have our pizza later.

We arrive at the civil affairs offc, and he asks M if we have the X document--which we had left in the hotel. L is VERY displeased, but shouldn't he have asked us if we HAD everything? Anyway, M and B RUN out of the ofc, get into the car, zoom off, run through the hotel, retrieve ALL documents we brought, and return to the office. Driver expertly averts scores of accidents.

Got back just in time, quick picture, H gets a panda doll and official reads a proclamation making the adoption official. Since M recalled Liu saying we had to get out of there quickly to make it to the notary in time, he wanted to dispense with formalities, but apparently actually READING the thing in Chinese makes everything take hold.

Then speed to the notary. Hand over documents we can't read. N's been feeling badly all day, so this was not a fun afternoon. Kids all want numerous snacks here, but that's probably understandable, since we didn't really eat lunch, and our pizza has been patiently awaiting our return for an hour and a half.

Once this is done, we can breathe easy for the day, as all major tasks have been accomplished. We drive back to Pizza Hut to retrieve the pizza (boxes moist from the steam--I guess they don't have heatlamps here), and shop at Trustmart for snacks for tomorrow. C begs for orange juice, but we get apple instead. Bananas are the big purchase, along with other less healthy choices.

We eat pizza in the room, and N collapses in a heap--the day's been REALLY rough for her, and she feels really cruddy. Kids clean up and get ready for bed, and N feels better once she's got some food in her system, etc. We talk for a bit, and pray a bit, about Hannah. We're just not sure all's well with her, and are concerned that there may be other problems besides the cleft lip/palate issues. We're not sure if she's just grieving intensely, or if there is something else. But we talked with the international adoption specialist doctor, and she said we should see some improvement everyday--if we see regular improvement, no matter how slight, then that's a good sign.

A real test of how she's doing will be when we hit the orphanage tomorrow, as many kids stay sad until they formally say goodbye to their caregivers. It was wonderful note, though, that when M put her to bed she gave him a little smile in the mirror...hey, we count every victory!