We Have Consulate Approval!

Ready to Rock and roll!

Full House

This weekend our not too tidy house -- aka the staging area for the voyage to China -- was overflowing with friends.

Tammy came for a playdate with JieJie as we prepare to travel to China with her as our right hand. Ann and Addam came for our last gathering before we leave for China. Sammy, best man at our wedding when all of us were young, was in town too, on his way home to New Orleans after taking his son to college.

So much for packing and organizing.

We did buy some luggage and one baby bottle. We ate some sushi. JieJie had fun. She put the icing on cinnamon rolls, made chalk stencilsonthe sidewalks and went to the pool. She also spent a lot of time playing "Big Sister and Little Sister" in which the elder sister, portrayed inexplicably by a plastic cat, repeatedly shoved the younger, a wooden girl from the multicultural and multidimensional dollhouse family, down the slide of a Little People play set. Each time the wooden or body clattered down the slide, a pressure-sensitive panel would release a rather chilling burst of childish laughter. And JieJie would scream, in the voice of big sister, "You are a baby! You sleep downstairs!" as she let the doll slide down and crash on the floor.

Auntie Ann manipulated the "baby" doll, trying calmly to teach about sharing and kindness, but JieJie, who professes to be nothing but thrilled at the prospect of a meimei, continued her forcible exile of the little sister doll.

So much for Siblings Without Rivalry.

Names for MeiMei

We are narrowing it down. We've received lots of good ideas for an English name for our little "record surplus." We'll keep her Chinese name, Jiying, as her middle name. For a given name we are now focused on derivatives of David, to honor the memory of one of her grandfathers, the amazing Mr. Dave, who passed away two short months ago.

Dava or Davia or Davyn, or maybe even Davan.

One of those will work nicely.

Nursery School Buzz

The news of JieJie's little sister was all over her nursery school this week. Now we know what she really thinks. When the director the school asked JieJie to tell her about the coming new addition, JieJie said, "She's bald."

JieJie cheerfully picked out goodies to send to her little sister's foster family and orphanage workers and to sis herself.
It was hard for her to part with the Jelly Bellies, but she chose a pink blanket, a noise-making toy and a soft book to go in the box along with labeled photos of our family, a pile of instant cameras and video cameras to be returned containing photos of the baby and her foster family and orphanage friends and a toy cell phone with a recording of mama's voice.

It's winging its way to China now, and we won't be far behind.

Name the Baby

Both our girls are from Guangxi Province: Jie Jie is from Laibin City; Mei Mei is from Yulin. (Click on image to enlarge.)

We have three small photos. Four if you include the tiny black and white photocopy that came with MeiMei's medical reports.

She looks impish. Saucy. Strong.

But we can't decide what to call her.

Samantha? Tessa? Lena? Justine? None of the above?
JieJie has suggested Isabella, or, failing that, Silliness Duck.

Have any thoughts? Post them in the comments section. The winner may get a nominal prize. But then again maybe not.

Clue: Her middle name will be JiYing. According to the translated "Growth Report" we received today, that means "record surplus." A bit on the prosaic side.

Doubtless she has some sophistication, as evidenced by this line in the report:
"Her heart rate was 132/min and heart rhythm was normal, while there was no soufflé."

Meet Us in St. Louis

Our last stop on the Midwest road trip was St. Louis, where JieJie got to see the arch, jump with her friends on their trampoline, play with George and Toto the dogs, go to a children's museum called The Magic House, go swimming and get a crash course in anime. She also baked heart-shaped cookies, made a giant strawberry pop tart and got her first Ted Drewe's concrete. Pretty good for less than 48 hours, and the sugar consumption surely set a record.

Our referral documents were sent to our friends' house in St. Louis, but we did not get to photograph the Fedex man, who dropped the package, rang the bell and sprinted. We sent back the documents posthaste to ensure our best chance of travel to China soonest -- before the big Guangzhou trade fair.

It's a good thing we were with Jane, who is a first-class mom to anyone who needs mothering -- and much more besides. She was there to take charge, escort me to the local copy shop, help me copy, count, collate and fax the documents, find credit cards I left in machines, then prepare the precious acceptance package for shipping back to the agency. So many friends have stood beside us through our two adoptions, and all of them are aunts and uncles and cousins to JieJie and now to MeiMei. There is a supportive, loving circle of children and grownups surrounding our girls, and if I teach them nothing else it will be that enduring friendships are matchless treasures.

Laibin Sisters Reunion

On Saturday we had our third annual reunion of the Laibin sisters, 8 lovely girls who are now 4 years old. Everyone had a terrific time sloshing down water slides, playing dress-up, splashing in the pool, dancing, doing crafts, eating too much and exchanging photos. It's such a joy to watch the girls grow. So many could not walk when we first met them in China three years ago in May. In some cases their hair was shaved on the sides. I didn't understand why until I saw a group photo from the orphanage showing a cluster of kids, heads shaved at the sides, apparently to make it easier to insert the IV lines (of antibiotics?) secured to their heads with clean rags tied like headbands. When we became a family, JieJie's hair was short and stood straight up. We called her Spike. She was gorgeous.

Now the China sisters can pirouette, ice skate, write their names and have some pretty interesting conversations. They don't seem to know yet why we travel across the country to bring them together each year, but perhaps someday they will find some comfort in knowing the girls who were their orphanage cribmates from their first days, before we came into their lives.

Tomorrow we gather again for brunch with the families before heading out for the last leg of our trip. On Monday we will receive the detailed information on MeiMei. We took a printout of her photos with us to the reunion, and JieJie ran through our hosts' home waving the paper and yelling, "Guys, guys, look at my sister!" She also performed at least 100 somersaults.

That night, lying in bed, JieJie made a confession. "I think about hugging Solomon." Solomon is the handsome heartbreaker of her nursery school, and lately we have run into him at the park several times. While JieJie can outrun a lot of girls, Solly runs rings around her, and she willingly follows him, chugging around the track.

"Have you ever huggged him?" I asked.
"Yes."
"Have you ever kissed him?"
"No. I'm too afraid."

The next morning when she opened her eyes, she stretched and said, "I'm still thinking about hugging Solomon."

I suppose a lot of the other girls are too. Solomon and JieJie will be headed to different schools for Pre-K in just a few weeks.

It's a girl!

We got the call about our new baby as we pulled out of a gas station on the way to Indianapolis, just moments after leaving her new grandmother's house. (Lucky baby has three grandmas: YiaYia, Grandma Mollyne and Granny Connie.
When the cell phone rang, much earlier than we expected, we were so flustered I forgot the list of questions I had tucked in my overloaded purse, so we don't know MeiMei's size, weight or name!
That's what you get for taking notes on a Kleenex box in a moving car.
Based on that original concersation, we thought MeiMei was from Guilin, but it's actually Yulin. She is in foster care, associated with one of the Yulin City orphanages. Because she is from JieJie's province, we'll get to go back to Nanning and perhaps visit both orphanages, Laibin and Yulin.

I'm not sure what else Heather from the adoption agency said in the first call. I know I told her i loved her several times.

I thought the whole process would be calmer the second time around, and that perhaps the grown-ups would be more prepared and less numb, especially after waiting nearly two years to be matched with this little baby girl, but I was wrong. Clutching the cellphone, I babbled on as the car cruised past the green walls of corn on either side in the August heat. Onward to Indy and a celebratory cocktail with very, very old friends.

Waiting

It was a busy day visiting the chocolate factory and seeing family, with no time for an Internet stop. Connecting to RQ and email via Blackberry was really not fun, especially for those of us who are typing impaired. Tomorrow, Aug. 2, we’ll be on the road to our next stop, traveling through the cornfields, probably with one stop en route for an Internet connection with the laptop and otherwise relying on iffy cell phone connections and the blackberry.

Oh well, we really don’t expect to hear anything on Thursday, anyway, right? Wrong! A little bird is saying tomorrow may be the day. I don’t think I’ll be sleeping much tonight! Will try to get this posted sometime tomorrow. In the meantime, we can think about names…. And where in the world to get the FedEx sent?