She is Our Daughter

Keep the Cheerios coming and everything will be alright!

Hannah and Elainea, Sisters at Last!

It was but a fleeting moment the first night.

Elainea and her Grandmother.

Just hanging out in our room.

Happiness is a butterfly, which, when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.Nathaniel Hawthorne

Today we signed the final Chinese adoption papers. According to the Chinese Civil Affairs Administration we are her parents!

Our first day together went better than I expected, but the night was a different story (she did not sleep well). I was overwhelmed with the amount of food she was eating. I finally had to cut her off so she would not get herself sick. Food was going in, but nothing was coming out. Then she had her first diaper. I learned that changing a diaper is like riding a bike, you never forget.
Elainea is very sweet. She clings to the little photo book we sent. She loves to look at the photos. She knows that I am her “MaMa”, Joe is “BeBe” and Hannah is “Jie Jie” but she still does not know exactly what a family is. She is very curious and has been getting into everything in the hotel room. She is very independent and you can tell that they expect the children in the orphanage to be self-reliant. She grabbed onto three hard candies at the civil affairs office and would not let them go. She would put them into something and then take them back out. She knew she had three and would look for them if one ended up missing.

We went to the market today. It is the equivalent of what we would call the mall. We bought Elainea some clothes because none of the ones we brought fit her. The local people are very kind and curious to see a white family carrying around a little Chinese girl. I was holding Elainea when a store attendant Elainea to come to her, Elainea quickly shook her head ‘No”. Way to go Elainea! This is not bonding yet, but it shows that she feels safer with a white ‘MaMa’ then with an unknown Chinese woman.

The orphanage director seemed to really care about the children at the orphanage. This orphanage had a schooling program called, Half The Sky Foundation. They created a memory book of Elainea at the orphanage. It was neat to see that she was in a photograph holding hands with another little girl in our group Emma. We are going to make sure that they remain friends when they come back home.

The culture here is slowly transforming. The country is called “New China” as it was only unified under Chairman Mao and the communist party in the late 1940’s. As the industrial revolution is taking hold of the country so is a huge cultural shift. The young people are moving to the city where they have access to the amenities of modern living. The older generation holds onto their traditional ways and live in the countryside and ghettos of the city. The generation gap here is both cultural and geographical. Still they find a way of reconciling and still maintain close relationships with their families.

The difference is also marked when you are in the ancient compound of the Forbidden City and you look out into high rise buildings.

I will never complain again about Utah drivers. Traffic here is in a whole new league. It appears to be a free-for-all between motorized vehicles, bicycles and pedestrians. Crossing the street I get the feeling that I am the frog in the Frogger arcade game.

Enough about China I am sure you all want to know about our little Elainea. Tomorrow we will visit some botanical gardens and then maybe the beach. Each day brings us one step closer to being home.