Monday, December 7, 2009
TODAY IS OPAL!

And now, we are the Furious Five!!! Today was a miraculous day. We had breakfast at the hotel this morning. Not quite as nice as the breakfast at the Poly Plaza, but still very good. After breakfast we came back and hung out in the room. We didn’t have an appointment until 11:30 A.M. when our guide Sophie (not our daughter) was to bring some paperwork to our room for Brandy and I to fill out. Brandy did some school work with Amalie and Sophie. Fessick, the big bum, grabbed a morning nap. After Sophie had come and gone and all the paperwork had been filled out, we ordered lunch to be brought up to the room. It rained outside all day and was very foggy and we didn’t feel like fighting the crowds so we ate in.

We weren’t sure how big the plates were going to be from the hotel kitchen so we ordered quite a bit of food. Suffice to say we had too much. We all ate until we were full, then we ate some more. Both of the girls stood up from the table holding their bellies. I took a picture of Sophie making a ridiculous face and holding her stuffed little tummy. While we were eating a crew of people brought back the laundry that we had sent out yesterday. 4 people in all. 3 from the laundry service, accompanied by our guide. I think they were shocked at how much laundry we had given them and were worried that we wouldn’t want to pay the bill. They had itemized everything. We gladly paid it without a second thought and they seemed truly grateful.

We finished lunch just in time to head down to the bus to pick up Opal. We made the twenty minute drive to the Civil Affairs office here in Chongqing. When we arrived we had to pile the kids out of the bus on the street side because of the direction we were parked. It made us nervous to get out with all of the traffic whizzing by. We darted into the building while trying to get the cameras ready. Our guide had told us that the kids would be waiting. I apologize for the poor picture quality. There seems to be something wrong with our camera. We will try to get a new one tomorrow. We went up the elevator to the 14th floor. When we got out of the elevator and around the corner, the two girls were standing there waiting for us. Opal was only slightly larger than the 15 month old Faith and Matt are adopting. I knew it was her right away. As I shot video footage we inched our way forward. Since this was our third go at introducing ourselves to a little girl we knew to be slow and cautious to not startle her. I was AMAZED at how smoothly the transition went. She didn’t cry at all and was calling us mama and baba right away. Obviously her foster family did a wonderful job preparing her for today.

Sweet, Shy, and Quiet was the description given to us by her care takers. I’d say they pretty much nailed it. After a brief introduction period we packed up to head back to the hotel. Brandy gave Opal her little ladybug backpack, the last of the three we brought with us. It made me smile to see my wife holding hands with them, linked to my three little ladybugs. Opal did very well heading back to the bus, indeed I would say the she has better coordination going up and down stairs than Sophie does at this point. She takes small steps of course, but she cooks right along. Another 20 minute bus ride and we were back at the hotel.

When we got back to the room Opal headed right for the desk chair. She sat there and ate for the next hour. She ate 3 boxes of raisins, a small bag of peanuts, half of a plate of fruit, two cookies and half a box of tic tacs. At one point Brandy and I wondered if she was ever going to stop eating. Meanwhile Amalie and Sophie went crazy jumping on Fessick. They had been pinned up in the room or in a bus all day and were ready to let off some serious steam. I obliged them by doing my favorite new exercise, the little girl bench press. I alternate sets of ten. One with Amalie. One with Sophie. They laugh and giggle the whole time and can’t wait until it’s their turn. After about 40 minutes of this, and other various wrestling around, my arms and chest were starting to get VERY tired, as you can imagine. I explained this to Sophie using ASL. I knew she understood when she got me to lay flat and then began giving me a very professional massage. She went up and down both arms and legs with both hands, massaging as deeply as her little fingers would let her. She was even pretending to rub oil on her hands then rubbing them together every once in a while. It seemed very strange to have a six year old working this hard to try and make me relax. Next she flipped my over and went to work on my back. Karate chops, rubbing, scratching, and then a great neck massage. Unreal. She flipped me over again and began to stretch my legs out like an athletic trainer. Amalie joined in and the two of them tried to turn me into a pretzel. If I hadn’t seen it with my own two eyes I don’t think I would have believed it.

When they were finished I thanked them and then I told Amalie that I thought she needed a sputzee (ie raspberries, zerberts). After a little convincing I gave her one. What followed will go down in the history of sputzeeing as the most unbelievable 20 minutes of all time. Sophie demanded that I give her sputzee after sputzee on her little belly until it started turning red. She was laughing and squirming the whole time, but kept asking for more. Amalie was laughing hysterically. Opal sat, observing all this and even laughed herself a few times. “These people are CRAZY”, she must have been thinking. Anyway, after that she seemed to settle in. She even played with the girls a little, who now decided that they needed to put on a fashion show for us. Amalie and Sophie would pile into the bathroom, wrap themselves in some way with the blanket, and then emerge like super models and show us the latest blanket fashions. Then they would burst into laughter and start the whole thing again. Opal, Brandy, and I were laughing like crazy. When we came to our senses we realized that we needed to go get some dinner.

We decided to brave the rain and went out to the fast food place that our guide took us to yesterday. I managed to order everything we needed. It was utter chaos in the restaurant. At one point a man at the counter was somehow enraged with the teenagers behind it. Since I don’t speak the local dialect at all I have no idea what he was saying, but he was HOT! He grabbed a handful of plastic knives out of the bin, I’d say around 50 or so, and threw them as hard as he could at the teenagers. They all ducked. He was also screaming at them. At one point I thought he might jump over the counter and try to choke somebody out. I stood there watching and contemplating at what point I would make my disapproval of his behavior known by parking myself between him and the kids and giving him, “The Look”. Thankfully the kids appeased him somehow and he left. I don’t think he realized that he had somebody 3 times his size thinking about…………. Calming him down let’s say.

Meanwhile I had collected all of our food and brought it back to the table where all my girls were waiting to eat. We all ate like Kings. Total cost, around 14 dollars. After we ate we headed back to the hotel. On the way we saw a small shop underground (people go underground to go under the street, rather than trying to cross it) that had some little girl shoes. We stopped and bought a pair for Opal because the ones she came in didn’t fit very well and were not good for the rainy weather. She seemed very happy with them. Another little girl who loves pink!

When we got back to the room Brandy broke out the clothes. It took very little convincing to get Opal to try some of them on. She is tiny, but most of the clothes seemed to fit ok. She seemed happy with the clothes and after trying much of it on she helped Brandy fold it and put it in a suitcase. Amalie and Sophie did some coloring. When they were finished we decided it was time for a bath. Sophie and Amalie started stripping and running around laughing like they always do. Opal looked at them as if to say, “What in the wide world of sports and you guys doing?”