Red Couch Day

This morning I took Katie on a long shoulder ride along the Pearl River waterfront. The water itself is kind of scary looking and doesn't always smell that good (kind of like the Illinois River), but I did see a couple of homeless people bathing/swimming in it. The waterfronts, however, are nice and there is a nice light show every night. The light show and all the construction are in part motivated by the fact that Guangzhou will be hosting the Asian Games this year.

After breakfast we joined the herd of people getting their pictures taken on the red couches on the 2nd floor of the hotel. That is a big tradition of the many China adoptions that pass through the White Swan. There were so many people and so much confusion that somehow we did not get our "official" picture taken. Irritating, but I think we got some nice ones taken by ourselves anyway.

This afternoon we herded onto buses to go to the "swearing-in". It was lot of waiting with about 60 other families to get called forward to sign a piece of paper. Then all the parents at once had to raise a hand and swear (by what?) that the information that we provided the consulate was accurate to the best of our knowledge. Some factoids: of the 25,000 US to China immigration visas issued last year, 3,000 were for adoption, and 57% of these were for special needs children.

Katie's mood has been up and down today; I guess the rest of ours has been too. Kris has had a rougher time than I had anticipated. She wants to bond with Katie and be a good sister, but she is also a much older sister with a budding maternal instinct. Katie often (but not always) tests her as a rival sibling and that has been tough on her. She could use your prayers, too.

I think we need to get home soon. Though we (I) do not look forward to "catching up" with 3 weeks of lost time at home, we want to get to more stable home turf. Enough with the hotel living already :*)

Dean