It's Official!

As of this morning about 11:00 am China time, we are legally Emily's parents. We can, in their words, no longer relinquish our child. I've got no problem with that. Because we have to go to a special notary for her orphanage in the city where she was, after the registration office, they dropped us off and headed to the local notary office. This next picture is of the place where we went before returning to the hotel. It looks like an outdoor market or something but it's not. It is, in fact, the Chinese Wal-Mart. It was an experience! It was several floors and had these escalators for going up and down. But they didn't have steps. They were totally flat and with a good reason. You can just push your cart right onto it. The rubber things on it grab the wheels and you and your cart just ride right up.I still can't get over all the people staring at us. It is quite strange. People who are busy tend to glance and do a double take. I just get tickled. On the street, people tend to get a kick out of saying the one English phrase they know -- hello! -- I think sometimes just to see if we'll say it back. I've come to the conclusion that until we get home, I will keep my name tag on all the time. It has written in both English and Chinese my name and that I am adopting her. I figure if she throws a fit in public, at least I can show it if someone steps in thinking we're kidnapping her or something.

We successfully conquered nap time today. As long as you consider that just her actually taking one. She still wasn't happy at all and threw one of the few crying, wialing fits we've seen. But I laid down again with her and held her until the sniffles turned into deep breathing. And then I tried to figure out how to extract my arm from under her. Maybe before we leave she'll actually lay down on a pillow.

She has definitely decided I'm the one. She whimpers whenever Keith takes her from me which is quite a bit because my arms can only take so much. But she is gradually warming up to him. It is actually the norm that they tend to bond with the dad since all their nannies are usually women so I'm not sure what happened there. I was prepared for it and expecting it so when she started to show preference to me, I wasn't sure what was going on or if I was imagining it. I think it is rare though for them to have an equal preference at first so I guess it had to be one of us.