Great first night!

I just wanted to let everyone know that Maya Mei’s first night went better than we could have ever hoped!  We established that she needs a light on and that seemed to do the trick (gotta figure out where to put a night light in the girls room – all the outlets are behind furniture)!  She went to bed around 8pm and fell asleep after about an hour of tossing and turning.  I am sure this hotel bed is much softer than what she is used to. We had our guide ask her if she wanted her own bed or to share with Eliana, and she wanted to share with Eliana.  Other than needing to get Eliana’s legs off of Mei Mei once (Eliana is a floppy fish sleeper), the girls did very well sharing a bed.  So hopefully the shared bedroom will work out at home!   She did get up to use the bathroom a couple of times and a few other times she would take her pajamas (the ones she was wearing from home) off, and then later put them back on.  I am not sure if she usually wears pajamas.  But she always went right back to bed and to sleep in a few minutes.  At one point I got in there bed because Eliana was fussing, and Mei Mei took my hand and held it. :D

 

Side note, the cartoon characters on her PJs are from the ‘The Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf’ movie.  It must be very popular right now.  Her KFC plastic toy in her kids meal was a character from the show – she was thrilled and slept with it.  It makes noises and kept going off in the night when she rolled on it! I feel really badly because she was telling me about her stuffed dog  (guo guo) she left at home.  I am going  to ask about getting it.  If we can’t, I think a new stuffed toy from Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf is definitely in order.  She pointed one out to me at the mall yesterday, but I didn’t put it together at the time.

 

I think we all actually had the best night’s sleep yet!  I woke up around 3:30 again, but was able to stay in bed and snooze on and off until about 5:30am.

 

When we all got up she wasn’t sure what to do.  I put out the Polly Pockets and the girls played for a few minutes.  I made my instant Starbucks coffee and a cup of jasmine tea for Adam and she indicated she would also like some tea, so she and Baba had a nice tea sharing moment.  Thankfully, ‘would you like a cup of tea’ is one of the few Mandarin phrases Adam know! (Qing he cha). But then a few minutes later she was up and dialing the phone.  Her foster mother had her phone off.  I wanted a quick distraction, so I ran a bubble bath. 

 

She was very excited about the bubble bath!  I am pretty sure this was her first bubble bath and she had no problems taking a bath with her little sister.  She let me help wash her, but would not allow me to wash her hair.  I washed Eliana’s first, but when I asked her ‘tou fa, hao bu hao’, (the closest thing I could come up with to ‘May I wash your hair’, but it was more like – Hair, yes or no?) she shook her head No vigorously.  I will have to ask Shirley ask her about how often and in what manner she usually washes her hair.  She enjoyed her new spinning toothbrush and brushed her teeth and  combed her own hair and put clippies in with great efficiency.  She was excited to have a matching fleece hoodie and pink monkey socks with her little sister and selected which pair of pants she wanted to wear – the Gymboree jeans with the embroidered hears at the hem and a bright pink satin belt.  Mama is happy. ;o)  She doesn’t like the Sketchers I brought her (I think they are tighter than what she is used to, even though they are plenty long enough), but liked the black boots, which is perfect for today’s rainy weather.

 

Adam took the girls up for breakfast about 30 minutes ago.  There is the nicest young man (wow, I sound like an old person) who runs the breakfast and will make eggs to order for you.  He was looking forward to meeting our new daughter and I am sure he is speaking to her in Mandarin and making sure that she has what she wants.  He told me yesterday that he would like to make a special fruit and yogurt dish just for me, so I am looking forward to that!

 

Well, I better be off to shower before they return.  We are free until 2pm today, when we sign all of the official adoption paperwork at  the the conclusion of our ’24 hour harmonious period’.  We did have a few ‘off notes’ the first 24 hours, but all in all, it was very harmonious indeed.  I have some paperwork to fill out before then and I will see if either Adam or I can get any of the video from our meeting online.

 

Thanks for all of the wonderfully supportive comments!  I get them via email, so keep them coming!  I haven’t been able to get into the other family’s blogs who I know are traveling, but I am going to try again (Melanie, Aus, and the other Hubei families).

 

[Shelli H., I delivered your picture books to Director Chen yesterday (there is a picture of me presenting it to him).  The foster care director was not there, but he will give her pictures to her and also to the foster family.  I noticed the CCAA officer was there briefly but we didn’t give her anything yet – we will see her today and give her your pictures along with our gift.]

 

Zai jian for now,

Laura Beth