December 29, 2006

Paperwork, shopping and general fatigue are the best descriptors for today…

Xixi (pronounced CeeCee) our guide prepped us… Yesterday all 10 families would be early and excited to meet our children. Today we would all be looking a little disorganized (searching for diapers or combs, running late and feeling general fatigue from the night before). We were fortunate that Gabrielle is a fairly good sleeper after one night. With that being said, we were still tired after preparing 2 girls for the day.

Grandma was a huge help today – babysitting both Grace and her friend Keelyn. Our room was the center of all 3 year old activity despite being somewhat small with two twin beds, a little mattress (for Gabby), a desk, a tv, a kitchenette and Grace’s tent. Grandma was kind enough to host story time, movies, a picnic with cold pizza, naptime and snacks while we traveled to the Guangdong Civil Affairs and department store. Today was all about paperwork – filling it out, being interviewed twice by Guangdong officials and then reaffirming all the details for the notary. This was a 4 hour set of meetings. From there we headed on a quest to the department store in search of clothing.

I never thought the words would come from my mouth, but we had to go shopping! Gabrielle is truly smaller than we anticipated and all the 6-12 month clothes we brought are too big. We are finding that she wears 6 month clothes and are somewhat concerned what the weather will be when returning to Madison… At 15 lbs and 25.5 inches, she actually lost weight since our last details from the orphanage. We are hoping to pack some Wisconsin weight on her to help insulate from the potential winter blizzards. When we took off Gabby’s original one piece sleeper there was even less than we first thought. No worries, Allison has found a few cute outfits and will continue the quest for clothes until all good stores have been searched.

FYI – the clothing police (little Chinese women) are out… They confront and reprimand new adoptive parents for not covering their children. Gabby is wearing 2 blankets at all times over her large outfits. As a twist, these ladies were upset with Mike for not having long sleeves in 62 degree temperatures. This is an arctic blast to the natives and being located against the river, it is a damp cold that we were unprepared for. Last time when we were here for Grace the temperatures averaged 100+ degrees and 90+% relative humidity. Now it is staying in the low 60’s with no rain.

Thanks again for everyone’s guestbook notes. These are all delivered to us in real time via email. It is nice to see how many friends and family are watching our journey.

We are signing off for the night as everyone is absolutely exhausted. We were supposed to pick up laundry at 8 p.m., but several bedtimes preceded this schedule. We’ll worry about clean clothes and more online notes tomorrow…