Good Morning! Happy Valentines Day!, Day 10, February 14, 2008

It is the morning of our best Valentines Day ever. Today we return to the Provincial Adoption Service Center to finalize the adoption of our beautiful daughter. Zhi Bei is still asleep and has slept soundly through the night (her referral had the “deep sleep” box checked, and it seems that was right).

Her routine at the orphanage is to get up at 6:00 a.m. and have breakfast at 6:30 and we will do our best to keep that schedule. We went to down dinner last night at her dinner time, 5:30 p.m. After a wonderful afternoon, as we got ready to go to dinner you could tell she was extremely concerned and started to cry a little. You could tell she was thinking “oh great, what is going to happen to me now.” We tried to reassure her with no doubt unintelligible Mandarin about where we were going, lots of eating motions and rubbing of our tummies. Apparently we conveyed the meaning adequately and she calmed down, though she was still obviously concerned.

We forgot to mention that during the afternoon yesterday the house keeping service knocked on our door as they had not cleaned our rooms in the morning while we were gone. This was after Andrea Zhi Bei had warmed up to us. She was so funny. The door is open while we getting some clean towels and she is running back and forth showing the house keeper her new clothes one item at a time, chatting away the whole time. What a cutie!

Anyway, she was pretty docile at dinner in the hotel just surveying the restaurant. Maybe a little cautious, maybe a lot worn out by the days events. We went back to the hotel room and Lynn, our guide, called to check in with us. Zhi Bei had already turned down a shower (we were told that the routine at the orphanage is that they shower every night before bedtime). Lynn talked to her and she agreed to the shower and apparently reported that things were going well. So Ann got her undressed and in the shower. This was some kind of progress, as she had resisted all efforts to remove any article of her rather warm clothing and boots during the day. Once out of the shower, Ann was able to get her into some clean clothes but Andrea Zhi Bei insisted on putting her boots back on. After a little while it was time for bed. Up to this time our communication with our daughter had been mostly names and greetings and a few words. We kissed our daughter good night and we each told her we loved her, Wo Ai Ni (Wuh-eye-knee, I love you). At this moment we understood for the first time a complete phrase our daughter said to us. She said "Wo Ai Ni." And she fell asleep, boots on.