Once again I appear to be the last woman standing. Both Thom and Lili are out for the night. We expect this with Lili as it is her bedtime but Thom is usually the night owl of the family. Today was our first whole day as a family and we spent a lot of time trying to get to know each other. As Thom said earlier she awoke at about 6am for a bottle
Morning bottle
Nachang sunrise
After her bottle, Thom and I each got ready. I hit a new low in hair today(and we all know that my hair maintenance has never been high). I could not find my hairbrush anywhere and before breakfast had to try and brush my hair with my fingers which does not work so well but Lili was hungry so we had to get going. She ate a fair breakfast including some cheerios and congee. By the end of breakfast, she was fussy and tired again. Thom and I had some paperwork we needed to do at 9am but lucky for us it was on the same floor. We came upstairs and Lili took a nap and we signed some papers and had some fingerprints done.
Nap time
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At 10:30, we headed out again back to the office where we got Lili yesterday and while the babies stayed on the bus with one of the parents, the rest of us headed upstairs to pay some fees.
Ready to go out on the town
Thom, of course, was hot and got off the bus where he proceeded to meet a lot of people as demonstrated below. These people gave him a special Chinese name and the old men showed Thom how many layers of clothing they were wearing because they did not think he had enough on. Some of them had 6 layers of clothing on while Thom was wearing only 2 and both of them were short-sleeved. We get lots of stares from people and they will often come up and talk to Lili and sometimes to us.
Daddy and I meet new people
After the fees, we headed to the notary office where we had a short interview. We talked with one of the nannies at the orphanage and met the director. Some things we found out about Lili is that she lived with a foster mother and father and there was one other baby in the house who is younger than she is. The foster parents’ own children are grown and married and out of the house. Lili likes to be walked for comfort as we had already discovered. She lived with her foster parents and went to the orphanage once a month for a health visit and the pictures of her in the album they gave us is from that monthly visit. There is also a picture of her and her foster mother together in the album. This is something that we will always treasure.
 Orphanage director and a nanny
Lili ate a bottle at the notary but was too tired to eat lunch when we got back to the hotel so we put her down for another nap. The plan was to go to Walmart at 3:00. Unfortunately, we had to wake Lili up for that trip but Thom put her again in the Baby Bjorn and we all loaded up on the bus and headed out. If you take your least favorite Walmart trip and multiply it by 10000 you will be able to imagine what a shopping trip to Walmart in China is like and don’t forget to add to it a million stares. Walmart is a very popular place to go and it is a grocery store and Walmart rolled into one with what seems like a million more products than you find in the states and even less organization. However, there are certainly a lot more people to help you but this is difficult to get when you don’t speak the language. Thankfully for us, our guides, Candy and Cindy were extremely helpful showing us different products that the babies would eat and which were the best diapers to use. Everyone was exhausted after that trip but we had about an hour until dinner.
 Daddy and me at Walmart
Lili had a bottle after Walmart and a little while later, we saw a different baby beginning to emerge. Although, she smiled a couple of times last night during dinner, she had a very flat affect during the day today. I am sure that she is missing her foster family and is confused by the two of us and all the new places she has been going. One of the things that they told us about her is that she is an extrovert and we had not had a chance to see any of that but tonight before dinner, she smiled in response to a smile from me and even better she laughed not just once but many times. At dinner time, she ate like a truck driver after we finally figured out that she likes to eat from chopsticks and this corresponds very well with the bird like way she opens her mouth for food. She also interacted with many people at the table and imitated me. These things were all wonderful to see and experience and I am sure tomorrow there will be even more new things for the three of us to experience and learn.
I’m so cute
Goodnight
