Day 8-Jen Speaks

Amazingly, I am able to be a tiny distance away from Nora right now, but only by trickery while she is napping. Even that is huge progress. As Kevin said, it's a struggle and many steps of progress and reverting back. She is adorable and has the absolute best laugh. There is nothing more amazing to me right now than when her little head lays against my chest and she lets out a contented sigh. I'm not going to go into the details of the lows here, but for those who are reading this while preparing to go to China, feel free to email me if you want more info. In the meantime just know that this is harder than any wait we had to deal with throughout the whole process.

Onto other things. Today we went with a couple other families to the Museum of Henan history or something along those lines. I don't think that I got much out of it as Nora had to do her laps, eat puffs without my help, and charm every person she sees. People stare, but smile as soon as they hear her belly laughs or see her toothy smile. She is easy to love, and she knows it. It doesn't hurt anything that even though they see her white mama, I am speaking to her in Chinese. I may be putting to much into it, but it seems like they give a tiny nod of "Well, at least she will stil get that much." Little do they know that my two or three sentences to Nora pretty much sum up 80% of my vocab. Still, it's been HUGE to be able to communicate with her at all. I am even more convinced that anyone adopting from China should be able to speak the language a bit.

So, we've had questions about our travel mates. They are pretty awesome. I was hesitant to travel as a group, but I am more and more convinced that these people were meant to be together here. I can't get into too much detail, because it's not really my story to share, but one couple is here adopting their 12 year old girl. She was very scared and even though she initially said she wished to be adopted, was changing her mind. She worried about learning English and being able to communicate with her new family. It was very hard to watch. It was made harder by the fact that once over the age of 10, the child has to give consent. This family did not join us at the notary office to finalize because they didnt know if it was going to be final. Should she decide not to be adoted by this family, she wouldnt be eligable to be adopted anymore, would age out at 14, and would probably live a very hard life working in a factory or who knows what. Not the sort of decision a 12 year old is fully able to understand. Even at the end her nod yes was tiny at best, but she had decided to move forward with it. Another family here, in fact the only one from the same state as this couple, brought their 11 year old girl, who took it upon herself to be friends with this girl. She began by playing a card game with her while teaching her some basic english and she is coming alive. She's still not convinced about her parents, but she loves her new Jie Jie (sister). They even had a sleepover last night. I think they will all be fine now, but it was so touch and go there.

Our group here in Zhengzhou is 8 families strong. 3 of us have no other children and we compare notes in the hallway while holding babies fighting sleep, or walking our little ones around. One of these couples have lived in China during their peacecorps days, so their chinese is quite good (though they say that people tell them they sound like they learned in the country). They live in Montana and their little boy is the cutest thing. He isn't Han Chinese, so doesn't look like your typical Chinese person, but with 56 minority groups it isn't a rare thing to happen. His hair is a big lighter, wavy, and he has the most adorable dimples and big eyes. He and Nora played together the other day and even held hands for a minute while looking out the window.

In addition to the family with the older girl, and the 3 noobs, there is a woman traveling with her two daughters, both adopted from China, to bring home 2 new little sisters. The family with the 11 year old has a boy around 8 years old who keeps getting people touching his blonde hair. They are bringing home their 2 year old little boy. Our group also boasts the most adorable little 5 year old girl who is lucky enough to have a mom who is quite fluent and took about 45 minutes to go from screaming child to nothing but smiles and attachement. Lastly is a family we don't see much of, but they brought their son who they adopted from the Ukraine a while back and who is now 8.

Each child has recieved different levels of care and we have spoken before about how spoiled we are and how well Nora was looked after. It became even more obvious when we all realized that of the 7 babies, Nora, while being the youngest by a week, is by far the biggest. The only one even close is her little friend who was in a special area of the orphanage he was at and was very loved and taken care of. I'll try to get a picture to compare so everyone can see.

I dont have much time to write before naptime is over and no idea if I can write tonight, so I will finish by saying that Kevin has been amazing through all this. It's not easy to be demoted to packmule and playmate (with strong rules). It's harder still to have a sick wife who is not doing a great job of keeping it together and doesn't always say the right thing. He has been a miracle worker and i can't imagine going through this without him. When Nora finally realizes how much better he is than me, I think I will be left in the dust. I wont blame her though. he's pretty much the best thing ever.