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Cabin Fever

I think we are all ready to go home and try to establish some sort of order in our lives. We've had babies in hotel rooms with no regular nap-times for a week now, and it is making everyone cranky.

A little run-down on the paperwork side of adopting from China. Everyone assumes that we have to stay two weeks in China because the Chinese government wants us to spend our American dollars staying in China. I really don't think this is true. There is a reason for everything in China, and the Chinese are getting pretty good at getting our money while we sit in the US in our Chinese-made Tshirts, watching a Chinese-made television.

When we started the actual adoption process in Changsha on Monday the 17th, we picked up the babies, and were officially foster parents for a day. They have a rule that you have to foster-parent a child before you can adopt the child. So they are bending the rules and allowing us to foster for a single day. On Tuesday, we went back to Civil Affairs and were questioned on our parenting skills and our intentions with adopting a baby. It was all pretty standard questioning. After that interview, we were officially adopted our babies, and got the official picture. Then we wait for the paperwork to come back on our baby. It takes two days to get a notarized abandonment/availability document from the police station, and three days to get a Chinese passport for the baby. We can't get either before we have officially adopted the child. The notarized paperwork showed upon Thursday, and the passport showed up on Friday. Then we traveled to Guangzhou to get an American visa for the babies. First thing Monday morning, the CDC doctors check out the babies, and certify that they can enter the States, then that paperwork is taken to our consulate appointment that day. It takes a day to get the Visa's processed, and the following afternoon, the babies/families are 'sworn in'. That happens this afternoon. We don't really know what we are swearing to. Tonight we travel back to Beijing, and tomorrow we will get a Canadian transit visa at the Canadian consulate for Kaya so she can land in Vancouver and travel into the States. We fly out on Thursday.

It's mostly a paper trail we have to follow. Of course we buy lots of Pampers and eat lots of Chinese food while we are here.

Kaya is finally sleeping this morning. She is a little stuffed up, and even Lisa can't keep her from screaming today. We will start down the baby sedative path this evening on the flight to Beijing. (1. Baby Tylenol, 2. Benadryl, 3. Whiskey. The whiskey is for me)

We watched a folk arts festival on Chinese TV last night. It looked like the gaudiest half-time show ever. We turned it on, and there were two dozen Russian guys in General uniforms. Dark brown versions of Colonel Klink's uniform with the big tall hat. They were signing a full-voice barbershoppy version of some Russion folk song with a full orchestra and accordians behind them. Higher on the stage were Chinese women in red feathery outfits with big Vegas head-dresses, also in red feathers. The background was silver and white snowflakes and ice sculptures. There looked to be 100,000 people in the stadium all waving glow sticks and handmade signs. After they finished singing, a young Chinese pop star came out in his spiky hair and ripped denim jacket. He sang a very sappy love song a little off-key and the generals sang back-up for him. And then ballet dancers did their thing in the background. Before I turned it off, two Chinese men dressed like Wayne Newton came out and started singing. It was odd, but very entertaining.

1 comment:

Uberlander said...

Maybe its a new version of Monty Python's "I'm a Lumber Jack" that the Comrads were singing:
"I'm a comrad general and I'm ok, I slave away for quotas till the end of the day......"