She's ours. China said so.

On Tuesday, we went back to the Civil Affairs office, took a family picture for the official documents, answered a couple of very basic questions in the form of two different interviews, signed some papers and Ellie Kate was officially a Cook! Just like that!

The whole building knew EK was there during our family picture. I had just gotten her bottle out to feed her and knew it was not gonna be pretty if I took it away from her for a picture. And it wasn't.

We had to take the picture over. And over. And over. Because in every one, she was wailing. Like an ugly, feet over the head, arching back, pissed at the world wail. This was not the highlight of our day. But they finally got one they were happy with. I think they were just ready for us to leave.

Before we went into our second interview, our guide Helen told us, "This man like to talk. Interview take hours and hours. You not act happy, he not talk as long. Or if baby cry." Great. We got the one government official in China who is chatty. So we put on our sober faces and I secretly was happy it was EK's nap time and hoped she might cry to get us out of there faster. I know. I'm a horrible mother.

He was chatty and Kenny absolutely doesn't know how to talk to people and not be happy (not that I consider that a fault), but we were only in there for about 10 minutes and we shook hands and he sent us on our way! Shew. No way I could have sat in that tiny room for hours!

The rest of the day was free and we came back to the room to attempt nap time. She did sleep, but it was 20 minutes here, 30 minutes here, another 10 minutes later. Most of the afternoon was spent laying in the floor playing, while Kenny and I swapped taking naps of our own.

This jet-lag is no joke! I don't remember being jet-lagged at all in Ethiopia, so I hadn't really worried about it. But this 12 hour time difference is killing both of us. The fun thing is, we'll get used to it and have to do it all over again when we get back to KY. At least we'll probably have EK as company on that end of things.

EK also refused to eat the whole rest of the day. Which stressed me out just a touch. She had been so eager for her first two bottles of the day, we really didn't understand why she refused to eat the rest of the day. I just kept telling myself she would eat when she was hungry, but she literally went from 10am yesterday until 5:30am this morning without eating, even though we tried multiple times to get her to eat. It made me wonder how much she was really eating each day at the orphanage and was she really functioning on 16 oz of formula/cereal a day??

We did go out around dinner time and walked to a local store (China's version of Walmart) and then went to dinner with another couple at an Italian buffet restaurant. Which actually ended up being very little Italian food and more Chinese food, mixed with other random food like lamb shawarma, which was actually very good. EK played with Kenny's bread and in his lasagna and watched intently as we ate, but no luck on getting any of it past those lips!

When we came back to the hotel, we saw a whole new side of EK. She hadn't really been playing at all with toys. Just laying on her back, playing with her hands or toes. But all of a sudden she started crawling all over the place (I knew she was holding out on me!!) and picking up toys. She was gigging and laughing at her self....we hadn't gotten to see this EK yet, but made this momma's heart so happy I cried!!

I know she has a long way to go to catch up and many obstacles in front of her, but it is amazing to watch her after having her barely 24 hours and the changes we've already seen! She's a strong little girl with a little bit of attitude and I know I can speak for both of us when I say we are blessed to have been chosen to raise her.

Tomorrow...the medical check. And yes, it was worse than the picture.

NOTE: Yes, I know you come here for pictures. And yes, I'm in China. Things don't always work the way you want. So, no pictures tonight. I'll try again later.

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