Adoption Finalization and Happy Valentine's Day!

More things we know about Le An:
- He crawls really fast when he's after something.
- He loves to look at himself in the mirror.
- He puts things in his mouth, not something Meighan ever did.
- When he's done eating or drinking from his bottle, he throws the bottle or leftover food.  That will have to stop.
- He goes to both of us equally.
- He has 8 teeth and is getting 2 molars.
- He babbles.

Our first night went quite well.  Le An woke up at midnight and Tony held him for a while.  After I took care of a couple of things I took over.  I had noticed that he only sucked his right thumb and it was kind of hard to do if I held him in my left arm.  So I held him in my right arm.  He promptly started sucking his thumb while I rocked him.  His eyelids got heavier and heavier.  He would suck for a while and then not suck, then suck, then not.  Finally his thumb came out of his mouth and his arm came down and he was out.  I waited a couple more minutes before I laid him down and covered him with a lighter blanket (one we brought--the one they have here is a "feather bed" and is too warm.  That's all we have on our bed and we get too warm!).  We all slept great the rest of the night!

My alarm went off at 6:45 and that woke Le An.  He got stood up in his crib and started fussing so I went over and picked him up.  I changed his diaper that probably didn't need changing, made a bottle of formula and Tony sat down to feed him while I took my shower.  I actually had to make a little more before I even got in the shower because he devoured it so quickly!

We got dressed and went down to breakfast.  I got some congee right off the bat and started cooling it down while I waited for my omelet.  I got a bun (Chinese bun) and some bread and other things for me.  I tore up the bun (the bread was a little dry) so Le An could work on eating something while I ate.  When I finished eating I gave him some congee.  He didn't need as much this morning.

Other families had pretty good first nights, too.  We went back to the room and brushed our teeth.  Tony had told me that my Valentine's present was a trip to China and he didn't get me anything else.  I told him, now, that I DID get HIM something.  First, I pulled out a card that had gotten accordioned in my backpack.  Oh, well.  Then I pulled out of Le An's suitcase a small bottle of Mt. Dew.  He said it was the best Valentine's Day present ever.

We grabbed our bags and gifts and went down to meet Echo.  We had to sign more paperwork.  Then we got into the van and Mr. Liu drove us to the Civil Affairs Office.  All of the CCAI families were there already.  Le An fell asleep one the way and woke up sometime after we got there.  I visited with a few families until they called everyone together for the ceremony.  Echo videoed the little ceremony that basically said that from now on we were the children's new families and they handed out the adoption certificates.

When we were done with that we were able to leave to go to the notary public to have our forms notarized.  They took our picture with the head notary and we signed more papers.  We gave our gift and Echo took a picture of us with the head notary and we were done for the day.  Before we got in the van, Echo walked us a couple of blocks to a pharmacy to get some anti-itch cream for Le An.  He has a couple of places that he scratches relentlessly and gets really upset when we take his hand away from scratching.  Funny thing about the picture on the box for the anti-itch cream: the picture is of a blonde child!

We walked back to the van and Mr. Liu and Echo drove us back to the hotel.  We have tomorrow free because we can't go to the orphanage until Thursday.

We played with Le An in the afternoon after giving him a bottle for lunch.  Eventually he got tired and I was able to get him laid down for a nap.  We also took naps.  We didn't feel like venturing out for supper so we ordered cheeseburgers from room service.  Not bad but I'll be ready for one at Lucy's on Shamian Island!  I'm tired of noodles!  I think tomorrow night we will eat at the Italian place in the hotel.

After we ate (and Le An had had a bottle and congee earlier) we were trying to get him to stand up on his own.  He was looking in the mirror and sitting down and all of a sudden he stood up and took what we believe were his FIRST STEPS all by himself!  Tony got the camcorder out and got him taking a few more steps ALL BY HIMSELF!  We got to see his first steps!

However, in a little while, I think he realized his new freedom!  He was crawling all over the place and standing up more!  He still uses the bed, ottoman, chair or wall a lot but I think something is clicking!  We went out into the hall and I showed the people across the hall the anti-itch cream we got.  They saw Le An and Mom and their new daughter (the 5 yr old from yesterday) and we played with a "Phlat Ball" (can get on Amazon) and I brought out our O-Ball.  Le An even stood up and walked a bit for them!  He was VERY active tonight.  I think he likes his new freedom.

We played until Le An was showing signs of being tired.  We said "night, night" and went back to our rooms.  It took longer to get him to sleep tonight but what worked tonight was to just put him in the crib and let him put himself to sleep--most likely how the orphanage does it.  He quiets down best when it's pretty dark.

I will try to email a couple of pictures to my brother like the Mom across the hall suggested and have my brother put them on the blog.

I am removing the banner picture at the top because we have found out that that is NOT Le An!