Merry Christmas!!!

Hi all,

Another great day in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, China!

Today was filled with lots of good stuff so let's get right to it.

We started out with a trip back to the Civil Affairs Office to "register" (finalize) the adoptions for our group. It was a slam dunk - the interview was very short and to the point. The officer asked us a few basic questions like "Will you never abuse or abandon your child?" I won't bore you with the others, but you get the idea. We paid sone $, and then we all went to the notay office for an even shorter interview. We were back at the hotel before noon.

We had both breakfast and lunch at the hotel and had a good time with Kyle on both occasions. He REALLY likes mandarin oranges (I think I may have mentioned this...). So he ate well and he had oranges, watermelon, and some rice congee (a thick soup) for both meals.

Kyle is the only one in our travel group from the Fengcheng SWI orphanage, se we got a chance to meet the Director of his orphanage and his assistant. They were very nice. Lisa brought a big bag of clothes to donate for the other children and the Director was very appreciative.

After lunch we went for a walk around the neighborhood near the hotel. It's very safe and the Chinese are very friendly. We got a lot of stares (perfectly normal) and several Chinese people stopped us to see Kyle. We dropped some laundry off at the Laundry next to the grocery store from yesterday. The girls at the laundry were very friendly and spoke English well. We bought a traditional Chinese outfit for Kyle (custome made and hand sewn - after we picked the fabric). It was made up up a coat pants, shoes and a hat. The pattern is a red one with a dragon motif. They told us the suit would be ready tomorrow - but within about 4 hours, they had already dropped of the coat and pants to our room! We'll get the shoes and hat tomorrow with our finished laundry.

Also on our walk, we dropped off the (2) disposable cameras that Lisa arranged to have sent over. These were for the caretakers and nannies to use to take Kyle shots at the orphanage. We'll pick those up tomorrow as well - I got digital output so we'd have the chance to post them.

We actually saw the first smile from Kyle earlir today - Lisa was playing with him and got him to crack the smallest of grins. In this process, you have to take yourvictories when you can.

We found out from some of the questions and answers that even though he was at an orphanage, Kyle was actually cared for by the same person his whole life. This explains some of the separation anxiety he's feeling. She was also very sad that he was leaving, and is still sad. We promised to send photos to her as Kyle gets older. They told us that Kyle was pretty much spolied (with all of the personal attention he got from the dedicated nanny). He still gets upset when changing holders or when things change too quickly. He's still very shy with strangers. He cries when he needs to be changed. Sometimes he likes to walk so long as someone is holding his hands, and he does not crawl much. He'll need to hit the Gym and strengthen his entire body!

Her are a couple more uplaods.

I've gotta roll. Thanks for tuning in.. we now return you to your regularly sheduled program.

C

PS - Big day tomorrow - going to the huge Chinese Walmart here in town!! Oh Yeah!!!