Day 6: One Less Orphan. One More Bucklew.

Smitten.  We are completely taken with this little creature.  She is an absolute DOLL.

But first-this from last night.  She was so tired, so overwhelmed, and did not want to let go of her clothes and wear new ones.  But she looked so cute.  She slept from 8 p.m. - 7 a.m.  She fell out of bed at about 5:30 - I picked her up, put her back in bed, and she didn't even wake up.  I hope that deep sleep continues...
 

This is how the Little Miss Z woke up today-how can you resist this face???

Discovering Elmo.

Her coloring is beautiful.  She has creamy skin, big brown eyes with these lashes-and the cutest little voice.

Helping Jenna get ready. 

The only hair accessory that we have been able to get her to wear so far-and only for a second.  She needs this-everywhere we go people think she is a boy.  Although I like the shag cut, we're growing out her thick, shiny hair.  She is really quite the little beauty-she is even cuter in real life.

She loves her backpack.  Loves to wear it-despite it being almost as big as she is...but she also understands it doesn't come everywhere with us, and is fine with leaving it here if I say to do so.

Other families who are with us-this is Lisa and Chloe.  They have been awesome-have truly enjoyed our time together so far. Especially without Bryan here, they have been awesome-can't imagine doing this without them.

This from the bus ride to the Civil Affairs building-another example of how traffic lanes are only a suggestion. 

Chillin' on the bus ride back. 

Today was another good day.   Day 2 of being a new family, and we made it official.  No turning back, as if we would even consider it an option.  She is an absolute doll.  We spent the morning in the Civil Affairs building in Hefei finalizing all of the paperwork to complete her adoption. 

They took our family picture for the Red Book-which is our official document from the CCWAA documenting the adoption.  I signed a ton of forms.  While I was working on the proceedings, Jenna and Zoey were running up and down the hall, giggling and having a blast. 

Red Book official family photo. 

Little monster breaks into a huge grin the second the photographer leaves.

My "interview" with CCWAA. Frank was translating for them.  The orphanage workers are standing in the background.  They returned to me the photo album that we sent to Zoey in January-along with the photos were extra passport photos and 2 pictures-one of her and her whole foster family, and one of her and her foster brother and sister.  This kid was loved by that family.  We'll be enlarging those pictures and displaying them on the shelves in her new room.

Her orphanage workers were there to sign off on the paperwork.  They also snapped more pics than we did.  Zoey was a little nervous when she first saw them-grabbed my hand with a death grip-but they explained she's staying with "Mamaa" and she did well.  We'll be seeing them again on Thursday when we visit the orphanage.

When we were done, we took the bus back to the hotel and hung out for a couple hours.  Zoey was a little more calm today-not quite so manic.  I know it will take time, but she is doing so much better than I expected.  While I know that the bottom can drop out at any minute and setbacks do and will occur, she woke up with a huge smile on her face and pretty much stayed that way all day.  Still skips, chatters non-stop, and smiles a ton-her attitude is contagious.

She LOVES her big sis.  The feeling is mutual.

Such determination-and quite the attention span.  She sat there for 30 minutes having me write letters and she'd take a turn writing them.  Her fine and gross motor skills are amazing.

The last 2 are her "signatures" - with absolutely no help from us.

Our little mini-family photo. 

Nothing like fries with sweet and sour sauce.

Double thumbs up on the Blizzard.

Chloe and Zoey

Up at 7 a.m., run ALL DAY LONG, pass out at 7:30 p.m.  Since she won't really let me hold her, this was a special treat.  I didn't want to let her go. 

We have discovered a couple things about her-she definitely was fed properly, as she does not seem to have that hoarding issue that others do.  She takes what she needs and moves on.  She is a pretty healthy eater, but is a little picky-she turned up her nose to McD’s chicken nuggets.  (See above.)  Liked the fries.  And the DQ Blizzard.  (Yes-we are going for healthy meals today, lol.  We thought it might be time to move on temporarily from rice, congee, noodles, and other interesting fungi, mystery meats and rainbow-colored potatoes.)  She loves play-doh, bubbles and stickers.  She has a great attention span-she sat for 30 minutes at the desk, writing down those letters as I showed her how.  She wrote her name-the bottom 2 “Zoeys” in the picture above are all her.  She hates water-we went to the pool with Chloe and her family-she wanted nothing to do with it.  Wouldn’t even change into her suit.  Megs-this one is all you-you need to change her mind on this one, and preferably before summer.  She still won’t brush her teeth.  Drinks tons of water.  She is completely potty trained.  And she LOVES Elmo.  We’ve pulled up a bunch of Elmo episodes on You Tube and she is entranced.  I pulled out a book today of Elmo and Cookie Monster, and she went nuts-explaining to us and pointing that the book was the same as the red guy on the computer.  For not having a lot of language in common, we seem to be communicating just fine. 

Her health seems to be great-she is active and is a healthy weight-not undernourished.  Her special need is a repaired cleft lip, but the cleft did not extend to the palate-I can’t confirm yet, but I am thinking there is a palate issue going on-she has all her teeth, but the area where the cleft started juts out unlike the rest of her mouth.  I haven’t pried yet, and she isn’t comfortable with me poking around in her mouth.  I can’t even get her to brush her teeth, so this might have to wait til we see a specialist when we get back. We are not sure what the thing on her chin is-the orphanage workers said it popped up recently.  Jane said it is not anything to worry about and requires just minor surgery-they call it a “monkey” here in China.  Will be getting that checked when we get back. 

She is quite taken with Jenna-has bonded to her far more than me.  I am just happy she is happy and the two of them are quite the pair-have had to set some boundaries with both of them, as they are already joking around and kicking/karate chopping each other. Each part of the day she lets her guard down a little more.  I can't believe how lucky we are-4 incredible kids.  Can't wait til they all meet each other.