We are Officially Parents now

Tuesday was a big day!

We are Officially Parents now, as acknowleged by the Chinese government! The adoption is finalized and we are a family now! All that remains is the passport and visa work to allow her to leave China and come to the US.

We also passed some other less official parenting tests. We successfully handled her first bath and first diaper change! Thank goodness for Min, our CCAI guide, who told us we had the diaper on backwards. WHO KNEW? Why don't they label these things? And the box doesn't contain any directions ... worse than assembling Italian crib furniture! We're definitely going to have to spin that story ... shoot, we're still above the equator so I can't blame the Coreolis effect for the 'spinning' the diaper 180 degrees. Hmmm, I'll need to work on this story.

I learned that a diaper bag should ALWAYS contain a second outfit. After 2 hours in gridlocked stop-and-go Shanghai traffic in a taxi with no air conditioning (on a HOT day) with a taxi driver who loved to lug the engine while using his clutch in a binary fashion, Medora lost her breakfast. Poor girl. Both she and I (Tara) ended up covered in vomit. Even the nicely wrapped gift for the upcoming official got in the fray. Thank goodness for our CCAI guide, Min, and Helena from the Chinese Social Service Center. They were both in the backseat of the taxi with me, and jumped in to help with the situation. This happened just as we pulled up to the Notary Public office to be interviewed and make the adoption final! Luckily, there was a clothing store next door. Mind you, it was adult sizes, not childrens. So we bought her a camisole and tied up the shoulder straps. You should see it in some pictures when we get them posted -- a pink camisole with yellow piping. It made for a reasonable dress, and the notary public was understanding... both of Medora's unusual outfit and of the gift, which was now just chocolates with shreds of tissue clinging.

Well, it is 6:30 AM here and Medora will soon be up, so I'll sign off.

We'll try to get some pictures posted today. She looked adorable yesterday in a cute brown with pink polka dots shirtdress (the AM outfit) and then a sundress (the afternoon outfit) given to us by friends at a "toddler shower".

Thanks for following along!
Tara