Friday, January 16, 2004 – Hefei, Anhui Province, PRC

Slow lazy morning and late to breakfast! There’s a convention in the hotel and they ate everything in sight! After we’d been waiting, they finally brought more food out. Can’t have breakfast without mandarin oranges!!!

Today was a play-in-the-hotel day. We just really hung out, watched a little tv, Mia took a 2 hour nap, etc.

The orphanage requested that we return the shoes and snowsuits the girls arrived in as there are still over 100 babies at Tongling. We were able to get permission to keep the outfits for 150 RMB – an amazing deal for this part of Mia’s history. We gave 300 RMB as a thank you and the director was thrilled.

This evening our passports and orphange receipts arrived. We were all playing in the hall when the director arrived and she seemed pleased to see the babies in such good spirits. Dads with video cameras filled the hall as each girl was given her passport, 2 receipts (1 for the donation and 1 for the passport fees) and then a thank you/receipt in a red vinyl folder. The director spent some time with each girl and she held Mia, who was okay, but looking for Mama and Daddy the whole time.

As soon as the director left, we went to dinner with Kathi and Katie. More Happy Couple! Kathi says “Happy Couple makes a Happy Single!” Robert didn’t feel well last night after eating the Happy Couple so he had the “Oriental Pizza” like we had from room service for lunch the other day. The fries were SOOOO salty! Mia filled her diaper after the pizza arrived and while we were still waiting for the sandwiches so Mama ran back upstairs for some baby maintenance. Mia was tired and a little fussy so I took her out of the highchair and BAM – sleeping baby. The shocking part is, Katie fell asleep too! Katie’s a night owl and usually is doing baby acrobatics at the dinner table but not tonight! We called it the “magic sleeping table” and invited other families to sit there too. It was really cold though, as we were seated at the big window. The view of the “European village” was amazing – I need to get photos!

I was still hungry so I got a dessert menu, planning to order the apple streudel, but then Robert said “are you getting a banana split?” and made fun of me so I ordered it. Kathi and I thought it was the funniest thing and we were laughing so hard we were crying. The banana split was actually quite good and I’ll have it again tomorrow night.

Robert was very tired so he went to bed and I tried to get Mia to go to bed. She’s just so excited with all the things that she can do, she doesn’t want to sleep. I can’t blame her though and I remember the boys doing the same thing. What’s a mom to do? I would lay down in the bed, she’d stand up in her crib and reach over and pat me “ma…ma…ma…mmmmmmaaaa.” Then I’d lay her down again, she’d start sucking on something and I’d look over – she’d be standing up again with the blanket in her mouth giving me a cheesy grin. I finally took her out again, rocked her on the bed, scooted away from the headboard to keep her from scratching on the fabric (another new game) and she FINALLY laid down for bed. YAYAYAYAYAYAY! “Goes to bed at 7pm” – yeah, right!