Pictures and another update

First, here's what I know you all want:

Are you still reading, or did you get stuck on the pictures? The one of her eating her weight in rice & egg was just taken about two minutes ago. Other than the "Welcome You" picture (how many family pictures have you seen in front of that sign?!), all the rest were taken yesterday.

Today we officially adopted our Little Z. We went first to the provincial government offices, where we handed over some money and received some very official looking papers in return. We had to do a short interview where they asked us why we wanted to adopt from China, if we liked her, and what our plans for her education were. We also had a chance to hang out with Mr. Xiao a little -- he's the director of the orphanage Z came from. Of course we don't speak a word of Mandarin & he doesn't speak a word of English, but we got a few key questions translated and got to see him interact with her. He'd say something, and she'd light up and clap her little hands. One of our guides told me how to say it, but honestly, I already forgot. I'll ask again & write it down. Oh, and we had to pay Mr. Xiao the equivalent of about $40 for five bags of her formula. I suspect that price was inflated a little, but I don't mind, as long as it goes toward the care of the children still in the orphanage. I think it will, as he's a government official and would be subject to some pretty severe punishment if he were to take that money for himself.

Next stop was the provincial notary, to register the adoption. It was not even a 10-second appointment. We had to state our age & occupation, and then he asked if we loved her. Duh!

Last stop was, um, I forget where, but the purpose was to apply for her Chinese passport. That's where it got a little sticky. Apparently there's some problem at the local police station with her ID card, and they haven't taken our application for her passport yet. They're supposed to be working on it, and we'll have to go back later today or tomorrow. Our guide will straighten it out, I have no doubt. Evelyn is an angel. While we waited around this office for half an hour or so, we found out that the other four families that were also waiting because of the same problem had girls from XiaJiang also. This was a wonderful surprise. XiaJiang is a very small orphanage that doesn't do many international adoptions. I think these five girls are just about all the girls between the ages of 1 and 2 that they had. Wonderful! We exchanged names & contact info with one family that we may be able to see on occasion back home. Lucky Little Z will be able to keep one of her oldest friends.

We had our first Chinese taxi ride after this last appointment -- the rest of the group went back to the hotel on the bus while we had to hang around waiting for the passport problem to be solved. Anyway, Chinese taxi rides are just like you've heard they are. Our guide told us that the saying is that if you can drive in Nanchang, you can drive anywhere in the world. I believe it. I'm just glad I was in the middle of the backseat, so I couldn't see much of what we almost but didn't quite hit.

We're going to head to a department store in about an hour, where we need to buy more of her rice cereal (her bottle is made with six scoops of formula and four of rice cereal -- it's so thick we had to cut the bottle nipple bigger for her to be able to get it out). Also on our list: bottled water, another pair of PJs for Z (one pair I brought is too small), some more shoes for Z, snacks for us. Then we're having a group dinner at the restaurant right around the corner.

Miss Z is still doing amazingly well. She's a very happy baby, except for when I try to wipe her nose. Massive screaming. She pretty much slept through the night, with one brief exception. She even slept through round after round of fireworks. They came about every half hour for hours into the night.

Heh. She & her daddy are having a conversation behind me right now. She jabbers some jibberish, he answers, she jabbers a little more, etc.

More tomorrow!