Four Weeks Ago Yesterday

We received Shao Rui Hannah four weeks ago yesterday! Gotcha Day was an experience! The poor thing just cried and cried. We finally got her all calmed down and asleep and they wanted to take a picture of the three of us with her eyes open! Literally, I think she was asleep for all of three minutes, and we had to wake her up again. In the midst of her crying very loudly, really it was more like wailing, we were filling out paperwork. About two hours of papers. We are amazed at the amount of paper that we have accumulated! Not complaining because we'd do it again in a heartbeat! I know we'd all move mountains for our children! 

I have to share with you what she was wearing! She was wearing yellow long johns that we had sent her during that cold, cold spell in February. Over the long johns was a pink and white striped, spaghetti strapped-like dress, complete with pink tutu. On the body of the dress in silver letters was written the word, "Diva." She had on squeaky  blue sandals. I wish that we had taken a picture of her in it, but she had wet her clothes so I had to change her into something else. She was just too cute!

Today, we had an appointment with the International Adoption Doctor in Oakland. She was very helpful and affirmed some things that we had already been thinking and doing and gave us some suggestions. Most children who come from institutional care and foster homes are somewhat developmentally delayed but catch up quickly. Shao Rui Hannah has already made leaps of improvement in so many areas; we are sure that she is just the brightest little 22 month old from China. We knew that Shao Rui Hannah probably wasn't going to like going to the doctor, but she REALLY REALLY doesn't like doctors. She was so wiped out from wailing that she fell asleep after Dr. Curtis was done examining her. Fortunately before the wailing began, Dr. Curtis was able to see Shao Rui's happy self. Interestingly enough, when we came home she seemed to have taken a step back in that she wouldn't let Dan hold her. She would play with him but just wouldn't let him hold her. I don't know if she was just mad that he didn't stay with her at the doctors office--Dan and the big kids went to the museum during Shao Rui's appointment--or if she just wanted to make sure that I wasn't going to leave her. I did try to sneak out to do a quick errand tonight, but she wasn't going to let me out of her sight so she went with me. 

Funny story....we had to wake our children up early this morning to get to Oakland for the appointment. When we were in China, we had three out of five flights that left very early in the morning. We would have to wake up the three sleeping children, when children should not be awake--neither should adults--to catch the these flights. This morning as we were eating our very early breakfast, Nicholas pipes up and says, "Are we going to China?"