Day 13

Today was all about paperwork. In our last province, we picked up Ruthie on Monday, and then had about an hour's worth of paperwork on Tuesday in order to get her official adoption certificate and to get her passport. In Seth's province, things work a bit differently.

We went in the morning back to the provincial adoption office and did some paperwork to get his adoption certificate. We got the certificate, so we are officially his parents. We've known we were his parents for a long time, but now China knows it, too. We were reflecting today on that first moment so many months ago when we saw Seth's picture and a short video clip. We knew then that he was the one for us and we were the ones for him. And now, he's ours.

After getting the certificate, we had to take the passport application over to the notary's office, which was about a 15 minute drive away. We waited there, turned that paperwork in, and then we had to go to the passport office to get Seth's picture taken. Part of my (Kris') arm is in his passport photo, so that means I am part Chinese citizen now. 

While we were waiting for all this, we struck up a conversation with another adoptive family who was also in line with us. I'm not sure how it came up, but they were mentioning that in China, a woman can't get health insurance unless she has a job (even if your husband has insurance, you can't sign up through his job). Of course there are a lot of government jobs here, but this woman was also telling us that if you work for the government and have more than one child, even if you can afford the costly fee, you still will be fired, since it presents a conflict of interests with the government's policy. The whole discussion made me glad that the mothers of our kids made the choices they did, so that we can even meet these kids, much less adopt them. China is such a difficult place when it comes to rights for women. There are no easy choices here.

Finally, we were done with all that waiting around (temporarily), and we went back to the room for lunch and naps. We got Seth and Ruthie some shrimp and noodles from the hotel, and they both ate like champs. We found out Ruthie loves shrimp, and she was trying to teach us the Chinese word for shrimp. Everytime she would point to one to tell us she wanted to eat it, we'd say "shrimp." Then, she would say whatever the word for shrimp is in Chinese. Very fun. She is learning some English quickly. She spent much of our car time saying the ABCs and counting to 10 in English. Over and over again. This is not a good sign for our long flight home.

After nap time, we went to another government office where we had to turn in all the passport application (are you confused yet?) and we had to be "interviewed." We waited forever at that office, and it was very busy. When it finally came time for the interview, the officer looked over our form and didn't say a word. Her superior officer saw that we were Americans, though, and he came by and chatted with is in English. He asked where we were from. When we said, "Washington," he said something about the University of Washington. We didn't bother to tell him that we were in Eastern Washington, in Cougar country (we didn't want to "coug" the interview). He was very friendly, and told us he had family in the US.

By the time we were done with that, it was close to dinner time. Our guide had taken us to the noodle restaurant last night, and she mentioned another restaurant across the street that sounded good, so tonight we asked her to take us there. It was called "100 Year Old Mother." In other word's "Grandma's Cafe." They served "hot pot" which is apparently very popular here. They put two kinds of soup bases on a burner that sits at the middle of your table, and then you add whatever meat and vegetables that you want. So, we had some beef and fish balls with spinach in a mushroom broth base and in some sort of spicy base. Our biological kids did well with trying some new things. We found out that Seth likes to eat tofu. For dessert, they brought us sliced watermelon, which has to be Ruthie's all time favorite food so far, as she eats her weight in watermelon every morning at breakfast. During dinner, we asked our guide to tell us some of the interesting families she has met. She told two stories, which are worth repeating: Once, a few years ago, she served as the guide for a couple who was adopting. Both the husband and wife were blind, and they adopted a 6 year old boy who was blind. She said it was very difficult for all of them at first, and she ended up staying as their guide for two weeks, because they had developed a bit of a rapport. They even went sightseeing, to see some stone carvings that they could look at with their hands. After we risked our lives crossing the street just to go to dinner, I can't imagine how this family managed.

The other story was even more fascinating. There was a family who adopted a little boy from an orphanage. They didn't know it, but the boy was a twin, and his twin brother was in a foster home. When the foster mom heard that the other boy was being adopted, she went to the hotel with her boy, hoping to meet the parents. Well, sure enough the new adoptive mom is walking through the lobby and she sees a woman who is holding a baby that looks exactly like her new baby! They ended up staying another week and adopting both twins together.

Also at dinner, our guide asked if Calla and Elliott were twins. We told her they weren't, but were in fact two years apart. The info she had showed them both with the same birth year. Since their birthdays are in the same month, she was really curious how you could have two kids born six days apart. 

When we got back home, Anne and Ruthie went to bed quickly, but Seth got a second wind. The other kids and Kris entertained him until he was too tired to fight it. Here's a short video that is actually from yesterday, but it shows a little bit of both our new kids and their different personalities:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/21147169/IMG_2390.MOV