Civil Affairs and bonding time

Ruth had a beautiful night's rest. We heard her cry out twice in the night but she went right back to sleep. We ended up having to wake her up at 7:30 for breakfast.

 

Such a sweet sleeper. 

We got her dressed in a little romper Trent's mom had bought and tried the sandals on her that I brought along. 

 

She LOVED the shoes and kept sticking her foot out to show them off. 

 

Hotel breakfast was okay. Nothing as good as breakfast in Beijing. 

 

Even Ruth thought it was less than thrilling. 

 

We played a little dress up. 

 

She really liked the headband but not for very long. 

 

She definitely prefers Trent over me at this point. It's absolutely expected that she would prefer one parent over another. 

 

And when they look as cute as this together how can I complain?

 

Nap time bottle feeding. She has a special cleft bottle with a spoon on the end since she cannot form a suction due to her open palate. The bottle is great, not only for bonding but also to put a little extra weight on her tiny frame. 

 

We had to wake her from her peaceful nap to go the the Civil Affairs office. This is the day that all the other families with us were meeting their children. Since technically she shouldn't be with us yet they had to take her away from us while we completed paperwork. I could hear her crying in the other room. When they brought her back in and she saw Trent she immediately stopped crying and reached for him. It was a lovely moment. And the director of the orphanage said I had lovely hair which made me smile. 

Back at our hotel we completed more paperwork. Every place that Trent and I signed we also had to put a red-ink thumbprint on top of. For Ruth they did a red footprint, just like a newborn. 

 

 

She really liked it. 

 

Pressing it into the document. 

 

I was thrilled when she offered to let us do another print for us to keep. I grabbed the beautiful book that Hannah and Callum had made of her journey from Xia GuYu to Ruth Veronica Hess. The red footprint on the last page felt like the official stamp of our daughter officially becoming Ruthie. 

 

Late afternoon Ruthie was getting antsy so I pulled out something that made noise. She really like it. 

 

Every time she pressed a button she smiled, then looked to Trent as if to say, "Isn't that funny, Daddy? Are you watching me?"

While she isn't speaking words, she is trying VERY hard to imitate words and sounds. I was doing 1-2-3 jump with her at one point today. After a few times I stopped. She looked at me and said, "aaa-nen". I said to her, "again?" And she smiled and nodded. In the morning when she wanted Trent to repeat an action she smacked at him so I was just saying, "again! Do you want daddy to read again?" 

She is so clever for picking it up so quickly. I'm sure once her palate is repaired her words will follow. 

 

Dinner- room service again. Ruthie loves sweet and sour pork so we knew that would be a hit. The shrimp fried rice was also quite tasty. We got Gui Lin style braised chicken that sounded delicious but was unfortunately not so good. Maybe it is Gui Lin which I don't know what that means but it looked like strange chicken parts with many small strange bones in it. Not going to order that again!

 

The cheesecake dessert made up for it. 

 

Ruthie actually enjoyed the fruit more than the cheesecake and refused to eat any that I offered her. She waved her hands "no" in front of her then turned to Trent for a bite. 

 

Aren't her folded hands adorable?

 

Overall things are going much better than I expected. Ruth is a dream come true. 

 

Tomorrow we have a full morning at the Civil Affairs office where we will finalize the adoption. We anticipate being there for three hours as there are four families from Holt who will go through the process there. Ruth is down for the night. I plan to go swim laps at the pool and later I'll stay in with Ruth and Trent will use the exercise room. What a trip this has been so far!