Our First Day

Hello,

It is still our first day with Ruthie and she is doing great!!

It never ceases to make me sad when I see how little our kids had when they came to us. Ruthie only had the clothes on her back and a small plastic case with photos we had sent her, pictures of her friends at the orphanage and some of the small gifts we had sent her. *Smith Clan - her favorite photo was the one of all of us in Williams, it was dog-eared from all the times she had looked at it. She had fun picking out the family members.

So far, we have found out that she is not too picky with her food and she prefers vegetables to meat.

She is extremely curious. She has figured out how everything works in the hotel room. She has opened all the complimentary toothbrushes, combs, etc. I stopped her from opening the complimentary razor:) She is fascinated about the bathroom sink and the faucet - she keeps turning it off and on and tried to figure out how to get the stopper in the sink out. I get nervous every time she goes into the bathroom, but so far, she has not done anything wrong.

She likes playing with American coins - stacking them up. She found a Chinese coin on the floor and gave it to me. Ruthie & Kai spent time working on a sticker book together. She also likes to joke with us. She totally has a sense of humor. We were playing with balloons with her and she took out one of her barettes and put it on the back of her head and attached the balloon to the barette, see below.

Another interesting thing is that she loves organizing things (like mother, like daughter). We brought a small "Hello Kitty" scrapbook/photo album. She had so much fun deciding what should go where. There is also a small playroom in the hotel. We spent some time there with the kids. They have a lot of large dolls in the room (they are actually quite ugly). She organized each doll, putting all the boy dolls in order and then the girl dolls. She then had to brush the hair of each one.

We are expecting her to grieve over leaving her friends and nannies at the orphanage, especially once the "newness" wears off. But, she is a wonderful little girl. Tomorrow, we go back to the Civil Affairs Office in order to complete the adoption. The adoption will be final tomorrow and she will be ours forever!

One of the older girls at the orphanage did her hair for her today. It was a very intricate hair style, requiring tons of rubberbands. It was kind of sad taking them out so that she could take a shower, but she said it was okay. She does like chocolate and has asked me how to operate the remote control, as is evident in the photo below.

Our guide recommended that we make sure that at least 2 of her meals each day be Chinese food, so that the culture shock is not too great. Another important thing is to limit our outside activities for the next two days, especially her exposure to other Chinese people. This helps her to bond with us. We had to do this with our two previous adoptions.

Our guide asked her if she wanted to sleep in a roll-away bed, but Ruthie said that she would rather sleep on the floor between our beds. She has set up her bed and feels secure there.

It is a small area, but she really likes it. It must help her to feel secure.

Well, that is all for now. I will update you tomorrow. Thank you for your comments. I love reading them.

Noelle