May 11th. Life with Bella
May 11the was the first full day we spent with Isabella, who soon became just Bella to us. It was a wonderful, magical day. The night before she surprised us by pulling herself up in her crib and then banging her cup on the crib bars and saying things like "ada" and "abu". We were enthralled. Finally around 10pm Bella drifted off. We watched her for a half hour and then fell asleep ourselves.She woke up around 6 in the morning, and made sure we were up. Actually, I think she turned over once and we both shot awake! On the 11th we laid low for most of the day and hung out in the hotel. There was a half day of paperwork to do and we signed the adoption certificate! Tomorrow we would get the certificate and Bella would officially be OURS!
Paperwork. Lots and lots of paperwork. That's what we (and by we, I mean Jenn as she has the neater handwriting) spent several hours doing that day. Initially our guide Chen asked that one parent come down to the 4th floor lobby to do the paperwork. About 15 minutes into it, most of us were there, hanging out, trading diaper stories and acting in general like proud parents.
Here Bella is getting her foot print added to the official documentation. We got a separate copy for ourselves! In fact, we brought about four sheets of rice paper with us and ended up dividing it and handing it out to many members of our travel group. Note the ever-present stacking cups. Mr. Ding is the man doing the foot-printing and acted as our local guide in Hefei.
Here Bella and Baba are getting some much needed rest before night nights. After this photo was taken we actually got up and hung around the coffee shop on the 2nd floor of our hotel for a while. We had packed so many outfits that we had spent time staring at before that we just had to try a few on Bella!
This was the first photo of the three of us that we sent out to our friends and family in China. We're on the 2nd floor of the Holiday Inn Hefei. The photo, taken by our travel mates was taken from the coffee shop proper. Bella's still a bit withdrawn which is completely understandable given the circumstances! Still she was able to give us a few smiles in private.
It was right about this time that Bella developed the 'evil eye'. She would stare at people with such intensity that it looked like she was well, giving them the evil eye. With us she was a happy little girl. Out in public lots of people felt the wrath of her stare. Bellhops, front desk people, travel mates, Chen, Mr. Ding, some chairs in the coffee shop. Our theory (developed later) was that the evil eye was actually her concentrating. She'd stare with both eyes, and lower her head so she was looking at you from under her eyebrows. Couple this with a frown and you get the picture.
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