The Day After

Aubree at breakfast

It's official

(The Director of Adoption Affairs)

Daddy and Aubree wiped out

(She would not be happy if she knew I was this close)

Aubree hanging out at lunch

This was the first and last time we got her to sit in a high chair

First bath

She likes bathes unlike our son Caden

Too cute!

What do you mean I have brothers?

As I mentioned before we all got a good nights rest but Lila and I were starving because we had missed dinner. We headed down to the hotel's morning breakfast buffet and prepared to chow down. Aubree was ready to eat as well, so we scored her some congee (a rice type porridge). I don't think I mentioned this before but what is funny about eating in the main dining room at our hotel is that they pipe in Christmas music most of the time. I find that to be odd given it is March and we are in a part of the world that doesn't much celebrate Christmas. Another oddity I have discovered is that your hotel room as a doorbell. This was the case in Beijing but it wasn't until we found that to be the case here that I felt confident reporting it as the apparent norm.

We had to head back to the Guizhou Center for Adoption Affairs, so Michael picked us up again in the lobby. We had to complete all the final adoption paperwork, which did not take too long. We provided gifts for everyone involved as this was customary. We took our celebratory photo with the manager of the center before heading back to the hotel. While I was filling out the paperwork, Lila was able to get acquainted with the lady from Colorado we had met the day before. Her new son had made quite the transition in 24 hours as he was very shy and a little reclusive the day before, but today he was having a great time playing with his new hot wheel cars. Aubree continued to be very clingy to Lila and would spend a little more time checking me out but still wanted little to do with me. On the way back to the hotel she fell asleep in Lila's arms and I was able to place my finger in her little hand. In her sleep she gripped my finger and I was very happy to hold my arm in a very awkward position for the duration of the ride just so I could have this moment (even if she had no idea).

We returned to the hotel and had the rest of the day to ourselves but really didn't have much planned. Aubree was a sleep on the bed so I laid down with her. If she had known I was that close I am sure she would have thrown a fit. When we woke up we dressed her up a little bit and decided to venture our of the hotel for a late lunch. We were growing tired of the hotel food and wanted something different. We went to a restaurant around the corner called the Seaport, which our guide Michael said was safe to eat at and decent. When we arrived we found it to nice and clean, but none of the staff spoke English. They sat us down and 3 or 4 wait staff jumped in and started to set the table. I was handed the menu, which had pictures and some English descriptions so I perused it looking for something we might like...most of the choices were not very appealing but I did find two chicken dishes. I guess I was taking too long to decide so they brought me another menu, which I am assuming had their high end specialties. There were pictures in this menu as well and English descriptions, but the food was very exotic. I saw chicken feet, deep fried duck heads and sauteed bulls tally whacker (they used the actual word to describe the appendage but this is a family blog.) The food arrived and it looked pretty good but we found one dish to be quite spicy and the other was not good because each deep fried chicken piece contained pieces of gristle. This clued me in to what the menu meant when it said chicken soft bone in the description. We managed to get our feel between the vegetables and the normal chicken on the spicy dish. Aubree sat up in a booster chair and played very quietly during the meal which was nice. On the way back to our hotel Lila and I are were starting to become paranoid that we may have just eaten our first meal that was going to cause us some stomach issues. I am happy to report we were both fine but we decided we would stick with the hotel food as there really were no other options other than authentic Chinese cuisine in the city and we did not want to push our luck.

Once back to the hotel we decided to give Aubree her first bath as she was not the cleanest little princess. The hotel had provided a baby tub so we sat her in it and we found that she loved being in the tub. She did not cry one bit and she did lots of splashing. It was so good to get her cleaned up but we could tell it was going to take two or three bathes to get her little fingers and toes completely clean. We decided to abandon the three ponytail look she was sporting when we met her and opted for a bow in her hair. We put on one of her other new outfits and headed down for an evening meal in the hotel. Aubree was absolutely adorable and starting to show signs of being a little more accepting of me. She would let me give her kisses on her head and talk to her over the dinner table. We went back to the room and I started in on catching up the blog posting while Aubree and Lila crashed. However, Aubree woke up and so Lila just placed her on the bed next to her and gave her some toys to occupy her with so Lila could rest. Aubree just sat quietly and played looking over at me once in a while at the desk to make sure I was keeping my distance. Eventually, she started scratching her head and rubbing her eyes a lot and even started doing some head bobs. Lila woke up and held her until she was fast asleep and put her down for the night in the crib.

Today was another very good day but now that we have Aubree we just want to come home. We think this trip is going to get extremely long from this point forward, especially our remaining days in Guiyang. Wednesday we are heading out for a visit to a famous park on the outskirts of the city, so that should be a nice distraction.