Guangzhou Bound

We are all packed up and ready to head to Guangzhou to complete the process at the American Consulate.

What a hell of a day. Zoe took out another dish at breakfast (15RMB). They had the bill ready for me before they had it cleaned up.

Then we did more paperwork. If it was a choice of having another tooth extracted or doing the paperwork again. I'd pick the tooth. No Contest. The paperwork took 2 full hours to complete. So many details. So many questions that didn't make any sense with yes/no answers. If it wasn't for our guide, Grace, I'd have no idea what to do. And yesterday - YESTERDAY - they updated a form. So we will have to do that one when we get there since no one has a copy of it yet.

I came back to the room, poured a coke, pretended that it was bourbon, and drank it down. I'm still stressed.

About 2pm, Grace dropped off Zoe's passport. And another form we don't need, but need to keep. Whatever. We also got pictures from the camera we sent to the orphanage. We got a copy on CD, but don't have a CD on this computer, so they will have to wait until we get back.

We have to pack up the electronics, including this computer, so this will be the last entry until we get to Guangzhou.

Zoe has been exceptionally cute today. She is babbling and smiling and giggling. She looks for us when we leave her line of sight and is happy to see us come back into the room. She is the spunkiest of  four babies, and the most outgoing so far. All of them are beautiful, but of course we think ours is the cutest. I'm sure the others feel the same way.

We miss our Zachary and can't wait to see him again. I'm glad we had him first; the first time parents are learning about being a parent with a new baby in a foreign land and worrying over every little thing as new parents do. We are much more laid back this time around.  We are OK with putting her on floors that aren't as clean as they should be (yesterday a roach came into the playroom to watch the kids play), but all the others put there baby on a blanket. Yeah, we are definitely past that first time parent stage.

We hope Zachary is having fun with Grandma and Grandpa and all of his friends. Its obvious that Zoe will love having a big brother. I hope that he enjoys having a little sister. I can just see them having a pillow fight and sneaking into each others rooms. 

TIP: The crib that they put in the room looks like it was designed to trap a baby's head and choke them to death. Seriously, you could not have designed something to be more of a baby deathtrap. You will need to deal with it.