GOTCHA!!!

Yes, we've got her! And our day couldn't have worked out much better than it did. It almost all went perfectly, and everyone's prayers for this day certainly were answered. Our day started off pretty slow and calm, with a nice breakfast mix of some traditional Chinese items and some familiar American ones. Then we ventured across the street to the supermarket, where they had just about everything we had travelled to WalMart for last night.

At breakfast, we ran into another adopting family who are here at the same time as us. Sherri had contact with Jeannie (Sorry if I misspelled it - this is Matt typing this time, as Sherri gets Kelina to sleep...) Then we ran into three other families here at the hotel throughout the day. Meeting all these folks made the process seem easier, like it was OK to be a little confused and overwhelmed, because they were too.

Then our guide Cindy picked us up to head for the bank to exchange our US Dollars for Chinese RMB (Renyimbi, or something close to that). We had heard some nightmares about how some exchange places were so picky about which bills they accepted - you had to have pristine bills, and they would reject any with even the slightest folds. Well, going straight to the Bank of China made that much less of an issue, and they took every bill we offered without question. One Praise down!

Then we headed off to another hotel where the Chinese social services had rented conference room space for the gotcha day event. We emerged from our van and entered the lobby to find a small circle of little girls playing ring-around-the-rosy with a few adult women right in the middle of the lobby. Sherri recognized two of the girls from her previous web exchanges as those being adopted by Jeannie and Jim. She said to Matt, "I think those are all our girls..." just as the ring-around-the-rosy brought Lina into view! Immediately she made eye contact with both of us and her face lit up in recognition! She gave us a little wave, and we did the same back! This wasn't how it was officially scripted, but it was a wonderful way to let Sherri and I know that Kelina was excited and ready for this event.

The guides and parents headed around the corner to the elevators, and while waiting there, the girls all came around the corner as well. The Nanny said to Kelina "that is your ma ma and ba ba", so Kelina headed straight for Sherri and I with a beautiful smile on her face. Our elevator arrived, and the attendants gathered the girls back over to them, but it was another nice small step in our introduction.

Our first "official" glance

Followed by a sprint to Mama and Baba

Finally, upstairs in the conference room, many families (5 or so?) were gathered waiting and attendants brought children in one-by-one. Kelina was one of the last to come in, but seemed excited to finally be able to interact "officially" with mama and baba (Chinese for mommy and daddy). We were warned that she might be hesitant about physical contact, but almost immediately was holding our hands or touching our backs and arms. She unzipped her backpack to show us each of the toys she had in it.  She grabbed her photo album that we had sent and started to point out all the members of her new family!  They had prepared her well.  She gave mommy a big smile when given the new asian doll and she loved to play with the princess phone Aunt Ali bought for her.  After a few wonderful "Kodak moments," she put her toys in her backpack, zipped it up, and grabbed Mommy's hand in one of hers and Daddy's hand in the other to communicate "OK - I've gotcha, let's go!"

Once the guides finished some other formalities, we did get to return to the hotel here in Nanning, and even then Kelina was doing great at interacting and adapting. She laughed at most of Daddy's attempts to speak Chinese, but most of them seemed clear enough that she understood and did whatever Daddy was communicating. She quickly seemed to figure out that for some reason, this new mama and baba couldn't understand even the simplest of spoken words, and was resorting to sign language-like actions, holding a toy up with a "hmmm" sound when it needed removed from its package, and the like.

Our guide soon finished a little paperwork with us and said goodbye, and we headed down to the hotel restaurant for dinner. We ordered Kelina a fried rice, which she ate very well, and a pear juice, which she didn't drink much of (after we tried it, we understood why). She did seem to like mama's Sprite, and the face of a four year old drinking what may have been her first ever carbonated beverage was really something!

Kelina will fit right in with the Smith children. She loves coloring, and gymnastics (she was leaping from bed to bed with mama and baba trying desperately to communicate "we can't get to an emergency room from here" in sign language and pre-K chinese.) She is independent, just like our Kaylie, by getting out her own toys. As a nice surprise, she is also very good about cleaning up her things, getting them all put away in order. She even made sure the crayons were facing the same direction before closing the package, detail oriented, just like Kyle and Kellan!

Finally mama got her a bath while baba went out for ice cream. Just like our other kids, she wanted to stir it up and melt it some before eating it.

Finally, a Skype call let her see ge-ge (big brothers) and jie-jie (big sister) for the first time in live video. She recognized each of them, and was pretty talkative. No one else in the conversation could understand a thing she was saying, but it was good to see her interact with her brothers and sister. Then a phone call to Sherri's mom brought "Nana" to tears.

Finally, it was time for bed, and that's where the one rough spot hit. Kelina started to cry, and we're pretty sure starting calling out for her foster "grandmother". That was hard. We started playing lullaby music on the laptop while Sherri held her, and rocked her. Kelina didn't resist or reject Sherri's comforting, but it did take quite a while for her to cry herself to sleep.

All is quiet now, and we need to get packed up. Tomorrow morning we complete the Chinese-side paperwork for the adoption, then hop on a train after lunch to travel to Guilin, Kelina's home town. We'll be there for two days for some sightseeing and maybe to visit the orphanage where Kelina's care was coordinated. We hope to have internet access from there for posts over the next few days.

Thanks again to everyone for your prayers and your caring. The prayers were effective, so keep it up. Things have gone better than we could ever have asked or imagined, and hopefully that keeps up!

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