The Jacksons in China, Day Five: Zhengzhou, Adoption Day

It's Kevin again, Jen is a bit busy with trying to get the new little one to realize that we are sufficiently non-scary so that she will go to sleep.  This entry will be short, as we're both very tired and we (mostly Jen) are in for a pretty long night.

I'm actually astonished with how quickly Jen has settled into the Mom role... Little YinCi has thankfully decided that Jen is on the okay list.  This is a huge relief since she will soothe herself very quickly when upset, as long as Jen is holding her.  In fact, Jen hasn't put her down much since we got her home, since she gets upset when she does.  Occasionally I can get her to like me enough to let me hold her for a while when Jen is in the bathroom, but that's about it.  Since YinCi probably hasn't seen many men in her life, much less a completely bald one, she keeps a cautions distance.

Today was a total emotional whirlwind and like so many facets about China, my brain can't process it all just yet.

We all left the hotel after breakfast and went to the Zhengzhou Children's Welfare Institute office inside a fancy newer building.  Here we sat for about 10 minutes until we looked out the windows and some cars and taxis were rolling up.  We had already made arrangements to swap cameras before names were announced and then one by one, we saw them come in.  We actually saw her outside the window before coming in.

Names were called, children were handed to their parents, and there was a whole lot of screaming and crying, not all of it coming from the kids. I hate to say but it was me that lost it while Jen kept her cool.  Nora was calm, apparently figuring that this was just some other visit and and we were just some other caretakers, so she didn't really cry until much later when she realized that her caretaker wasn't coming back.  Before she left, though, we got to talk to her, she recognized us from our photo album.  We got some more good info about her schedule, we took more pictures, signed some papers, and off we went.  We were in and out inside of an hour and a half.

That was a weird moment... are they crazy?  They just let us walk right out of that building with a little girl.  What were they thinking?

Anyway, back to the hotel to pretend that we have any idea what we're doing.  We had the afternoon and evening to start tomorrow's paperwork and get acquainted by reading books and building towers out of the stacking cups that she would enthusiastically knock back down.  I braved the Intersection of a Million Silent and Deadly Scooters to go to the 7-11 to get some instant noodles for dinner (that intersection is a very interesting Zhengzhou snapshot, I'll post video when I can).  This girl can slurp noodles like a champ.

She's asleep now, breathing softly on Jen's side and it still doesn't all feel real. We already love this little girl, and in time I hope she'll start to feel the same way.

Now, sleep.  More later.

P.S. Fun trivia game: in the second picture, all of those clothes lined up on the bed came with her when we got her.  Can you guess which clothing she was wearing when they handed her to us?

Answer: ALL OF IT.  Yes, every last article of clothing there (plus one diaper) was on her person at the time of handoff.  Chinese kids get bundled up like crazy, and sometimes Chinese orphanages don't get heated very well.