My First Full Day

I didn't write much about "Gotcha Day" yesterday, so I'll start there today. We flew into Nanchang early in the day. It is a lot different from Beijing. A lot more bicycles, a lot crazier traffic including more horns, a lot more poorer areas. Traffic is interesting in China. I think I have figured out that if you want to do anything when you're driving, you just honk and do whatever you wanted to do whether or not there is a car, bus, bicyclist, pedestrian or anything else. I'm really surprised there aren't more accidents. For as crazy as we thought the traffic was in Beijing was, the traffic in Nanchang is ten times crazier.
Our guide told us that the babies would be brought to the hotel by the orphanage director and nannies at about 3:30, and they would be brought to our rooms. At 3:15 the phone rang, and it was my guide, Michael, telling us to come and meet the babies at the elevators. Very quickly, I was handed Katie. At first, she was quiet and just seemed curious about me. Then the crying started. A lot of orphans go through a grieving process, where they grieve for the sights, sounds, and smells that they are used to in their every day lives. It's actually a good sign when the babies go through this process, but it is not always easy to go through it with them. She cried and cried. It helped when Michael came in and talked to her in Chinese and played with her for awhile. I also discovered that it made her very happy to look at herself in the mirror. I even got a few smiles and giggles out of her by letting her look in the mirror. Jennifer also helped calm her down with her iPad. She has an app on there for cats, where the cats can chase butterflies and fish and other things. Katie found it pretty entertaining for awhile.
I had to go fill out paperwork with Michael at night, so my mom watched Katie. By the time I came back to the room, Katie had calmed down a lot and had even played. The Grandma magic had worked.
I expected Katie to continue crying today. Michael said that the first three and four days can be hard. She slept all through the night though except for waking up for a very short period because she was cold, and she woke up pretty happy today.
We had to go early today to formalize the adoption with the Chinese Government. Michael had told us to make sure to pack a bottle since we would be there for awhile. I was so organized. I pre-packed the formula and rice cereal, and I got the inserts for the bottles. It wasn't until I was on the bus headed for my appointment, that I realized I forgot the bottle itself! I felt pretty bad, especially when we got to the office and it was so hot and humid inside. All the other babies had bottles to soothe them, but not mine. Luckily, she had eaten right before we left, but still, I didn't win any parent awards for that!
Once we were done there, we were free for the afternoon. We had a good afternoon. One funny habit that Katie has is to wipe her own tears off as soon as she cries by moving her head very quickly side-to-side on my shirt. Unfortunately, she does the same thing with any snot too. I'm already used to it though and have learned to try to beat her to the job. It was pretty funny though when I finally plopped Katie in Jennifer's lap today, and one of the first things Katie did was to wipe her nose all over Jennifer's shirt.

Tomorrow we're off to explore the China Wal-Mart. I hear it's an adventure!