Day 2

Today was a good, good day!  We officially became Leo’s parents!  I didn’t really need anyone to tell us that he was really ours, as I’ve known it in my heart since I saw him, but it’s nice that it’s official!

We couldn’t be happier with how things are going.  Leo is really adjusting well, it seems.  Yesterday after his nap with Caolon, we took him to the park across the street from our hotel and he started to smile and come out of his shell a little.  Since then, we’ve gotten lots of smiles and giggles from him.  Turns out he is ticklish, so I’ve been having a little too much fun with that knowledge! He has been eating really well, sleeping according to his orphanage schedule, and pooping (which is something to monitor and a good sign here in adoption land!)

I think he is bonding with both Caolon and I.  Maybe he likes Caolon a little more still, though he smiles for me and likes for me to hold him when he is upset.  Or maybe I just naturally grab him up when he is upset…but he doesn’t mind that I do!

Today started out with a visit to the “international marriage and adoption sign up and make things official building.”  (Okay, so that might not actually be the name for it...)  We all had to sign some documents (even Leo had to give his thumbprint, which he was NOT at all happy about) and then we had to have our family photograph taken for the documents.  During the family photo, the photographer wanted to place Leo just right and get him to look at her and smile.  To do this, she came over and started pulling on him and speaking loudly right in his face.  I haven’t known the kid very long, but I can tell you that this is not the way to get him to comply.  He was terrified and started crying.  The lady tried to help by bringing out a large, red stuffed bunny and yelling some more.  This made things worse, as he is freaked out by any toy with eyeballs (as we have discovered).  Finally, we managed to get the lady to back off and we gave him his sippy cup, which is his new favorite possession. He calmed down a little.  Poor kid.  It’s hard when neither he nor his mama can communicate what he needs because neither of us speak enough Chinese!

After the photograph, we went to a room to wait for a bit and while there, we met up with the two other families who had also adopted children from Leo’s orphanage (we’d seen them yesterday when we all got our children, but hadn’t had a chance to talk).  One of the mothers came over to introduce herself and we chatted for a little while.  She was so nice and I am going to have to track her down on facebook when we get home.

Our conversation was interrupted so that we could go into another room where they make the adoption official.  It looked kind of like a mini-wedding chapel.  We had to go up on a stage (though there was no one in the “audience” except Susan and our guide, Sophie) and a man gave us our official certificate of adoption and said, “Now you are finished.”  Then we had to pose for some photographs and give everyone the gifts we had brought (as a token of our gratitude).  That was it – Leo is ours!

Sophie then took us to the official notary public of Shanghai where we had to answer a few interview questions.  Haha – the first one was, “Do you know your son’s Chinese name?”  Which was totally not one I was expecting (and to be honest, I’m still having trouble pronouncing it…) so I kind of got flustered there.  Good thing Caolon’s got the Chinese pronunciation down.  He smoothly said, “Jiang Sheng Shi,” and we were set.

The notary gave us some documents for us to keep for Leo’s file including his passport (which is so adorable), his vaccination history, and the finding ad that was placed in the newspaper after he was orphaned.  These will be nice for him to have someday for piecing together his life before us.  Incidentally, yesterday we also got some things from the orphanage that will help him remember his first year and a half.  They gave us a book of photos they had taken of him from the time he was admitted to the orphanage until now.  It is precious and I am so happy we have some baby pictures of him.  That was very unexpected.  They also gave us a gift for him – a little ink and stamp kit and on the stamp, it has a rabbit to represent the year of the rabbit (which is when he was born) and also his name in Chinese characters.  This way if he wants to put his Chinese name on anything, he can do so without having to learn how to write it!  Or maybe he can use the stamp to learn how to write it someday.  In any case, it was so nice of the orphanage to do this for him.

After the notary, we were finished with our official business for the day.  Our guide drove us back to the hotel and we have been here letting Leo get a nap ever since.  He has a little cough, so I gave him a small bit of Tylenol and we are letting him rest so that it might clear up sooner.

Tomorrow and Thursday we are going to do some sightseeing.  One of the days we will take a city tour to explore the various parts of Shanghai.  And the other day, Sophie is going to try to take us to the location where Leo was found.  I’m looking forward to seeing more of Shanghai.  I thought I had seen big cities before, but I have never seen anything like this.  We passed an apartment complex/group today that Caolon estimated could hold the entire town of Laramie!  It’s just buildings and people everywhere as far as the eye can see.  My students at home just finished studying a unit on the urban setting – this place would fit the bill and then some!  When we told Sophie that Wyoming has 600,000 people she was completely amazed in the same way that we are about here.  It’s two different worlds.  Today she was telling us about how the government regulates traffic by limiting the number of people who are allowed to drive each day.  She said in Beijing the way they do it is by license plate number – if you have an odd numbered plate, you can drive only on certain days of the week, and if you have an even number, you drive on the alternate days.  I hadn’t considered that this would be necessary, but it makes sense.  Even with the regulations, the roads are congested most of the time. 

Being in China and becoming a mother is making me miss my mother terribly.  She would have been so, so happy about Leo.  But I know she is with me in spirit.  I can actually hear her words in my heart and I know just how she would react in situations.  There have been so many moments of this experience where she and I would have had hysterical giggle fits.  My brother and I always joke about her words to me before she left, “I will be proud of you.”  (In her morphine haze some of what she said was not always exactly how she meant to say it.)  Shawn is always teasing me, saying, after anything I ever do, “well, maybe she’s proud of you now.”  I know in this case, she definitely is.  This would have made her prouder than probably anything else I’ve ever done.  And she would have love, love, loved her little grandson.  I sure do.