Yesterday (Monday, July 26th) Nora became a member of our family in the eyes of the government of the People’s Republic of China. We had two interviews with the registrar and the notary here in Nanchang. It was really a lot less of big deal than it sounds—just a matter of answering a few simple questions—“Why do you want to adopt a Chinese baby?” It takes 4 business days for the paperwork to be processed, which explains why we have to be here in Nanchang for the rest of the week with not much to do except bond with the baby which, I suppose, might just be the point.
This morning, Nora had her appointment with the pediatrician associated with CCAI. He came directly to the hotel and checked out all the babies (one at a time) in the hotel room of the CCAI rep. Nora was fine for the first couple seconds of the checkup and then completely melted down. Her demeanor is very calm EXCEPT when you do something that she doesn’t like. In that case she’ll tell you exactly what she expects of you!
The doctor said that her heart and lungs check out great. She has a little ear infection possibly starting, but everything else was good. One of the babies was diagnosed to be malnourished and they made it a priority to get her up to speed as quick as possible.
Nora has a wonderful personality. She’s very stoic much of the time—as it seems almost all the babies are. But we’re slowly learning what to do to make her smile! From the start she’s been open to us and now after a few days is starting to really warm to us. Grace helps that a lot.
By the way, Grace has been a big hit with all the families in our group. I leaned over to Beth yesterday and said, “Can you imagine ME as a 9 year old going to China with Delbert and Lorraine?” What an adventure THAT would’ve been! She’s made friends with the two other boys on the trip with us. And the CCAI rep complimented her today on her prowess as a big sister. She’s being a real trooper, except for our day trip to Chinese Walmart. (Her comment: “I’m gonna throw up!" Thankfully she didn’t, but if she had, I couldn’t have really blamed her. They had a fruit called durian that stunk up an entire section of the store and smelled worse than death!) More on Chinese Walmart when I do the “food” entry of this blog.
Speaking of food, Nora is a great eater. She weighs significantly less than we were originally told—about 15 pounds total we think. But she’s making up for lost time! She loves watermelon, banana bread, eggs, cheerios—all things that can be found on the breakfast buffer here at the hotel. But she REALLY went to town on the rice and vegetable congee that was served at the Chinese restaurant we went to tonight. Congee, again, is like cream of rice cereal, but the Chinese put all kinds of gross stuff in it, too. Can you imagine spinach in your rice cereal? Welcome to Nanchang! But the kid LOVES it. She should probably enjoy it now, because I can’t promise we’ll be having it too much back in Normal, Illinois!
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