Day one

Our first full day as parents, and it doesn't quite seem real. Even though the little nipper is snorfling behind me. Snorfling, by the way, is how I've described her part snore, part whimper. She does it when she's falling asleep, and while sleeping.

To our surprise, Kiyomi slept most of the night. She was asleep by 8:30ish last night, and didn't wake until around 5 am. In fact, most of the girls managed to sleep through the night, so I'm guessing that they were all pretty tired. She woke up still a little unhappy to see us, but less unhappy than she was the night before by the sounds of her crying, and was fairly easy to comfort (as long as we were prepared to walk around holding her). We've found the 'miracle hold' - the way she likes to be held best, so she relaxes. Basically she likes sitting in the crux of our arms, so she can see everything that's going on.

She took a full bottle and she drank from a cup of water (after signalling an interest in my juice), although she wasn't interested in any of the solid food when we went downstairs for breakfast. The best part of the morning though was seeing her first smile. She was in a great mood at breakfast, active, smiling, playing peek-a-boo, and other games with some toy rings. Her smile is beautiful. And it only got better over the course of the day, even though it was a chaotic one.

Our first task was a round of paperwork - the first of three today. That took about an hour, Kiyomi pretty much napped in the room while daddy took care of that. While I was there, two representatives from the orphanage stopped by, so we were able to ask them some questions. It turns out that Kiyomi, and in fact, all the girls from Wanzai, have been in foster care for the last 5 months or so. Her foster parents are a retired older couple who live with their eldest son. This may explain why she seemed to be looking around for someone last night, and wailing when she saw Kohji or I instead - she may have been looking for her foster family. Here she is with the representatives from the orphanage (note the use of the 'miracle hold':




After that round of paperwork, we had lunch (where Kiyomi ate a wee bit of rice cereal and some rice), and it was off to the Civic Affairs Office for round II. This was a tad more chaotic, as every family had to go through a short interview, get a family picture, and a passport picture for the babies. It was on the 26th floor of a government office, and given that the outside temperature was 35 celsius, it was pretty warm despite the air conditioning. It took us about 2 hours there, and Kiyomi was a real trouper through all of it. While she isn't extremely interactive yet, she likes being around people and is at her happiest in a crowd.

While we were waiting, a couple of Chinese women walking by stopped to touch Kiyomi and spoke to each other. While I had no idea what they were saying, it was obviously about her. Our guide later told us that they were commenting on how beautiful she is, and even asked "why is she so beautiful?" Marui explained that Kiyomi has facial features that are considered very beautiful by the Chinese. Well, we were proud parents after that I tell ya. I mean, we always thought she was beautiful, but we're a tad biased.

















We walked out of that Civil Affairs office as the legal parents of Kiyomi Jin-Dian Miller.

After that, it was a quick trip the the notary to get the final round over with, where we had another short interview, strangely answering the same questions that have been on about a dozen or so forms. Kiyomi adopted a pretty standard approach to the whole rigamarole, pretty much conkin out on the bus, and not even stirring when we had to go into the notary building. It would seem the information about her being a deep sleeper was bang on.















Once we finally got back to the hotel, Kiyomi had her first real decent meal. She hadn't really been willing to take anything other than a bottle until tonight, when she chowed down on congee, noodles, cherios and baby mum-mums. We were much relieved to see her eating, and saw a lot of smile during the meal. Hmm, seems food makes her happy, just like mommy and daddy.

Well, Kohji and Kiyomi are now both snorfling behind me, so I think I'll join them. Tomorrow, a department store trip to get some baby essentials.